About block 971,696
Bitcoin block 971,696 was mined by AntPool on October 16, 2026 at 10:19 AM UTC, 22 min 44 s after block 971,695. That is slower than the 10-minute target; long gaps are normal, since every hash attempt is an independent lottery ticket.
It confirmed 4,561 transactions in 1.53 MB (99.8% of the 4 million weight-unit limit). The median transaction paid 2.91 sat/vB, up from 0.35 sat/vB in the block before, and all fees added up to 0.0334 BTC. With the 3.125 BTC subsidy of halving era 5, AntPool earned 3.1584 BTC for this block.
Block 971,696 is number 2,001 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 481; 15 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 971,711. The next halving is at block 1,050,000, 78,304 blocks after this one.
Its hash starts with 20 zeros: that is the proof of work, a number below the target that the whole network’s hashrate had to search for. AntPool found 220 blocks in the week before. Today the block has 6 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.