About block 971,721
Bitcoin block 971,721 was mined by AntPool on October 16, 2026 at 2:24 PM UTC, 10 min 44 s after block 971,720. That is slower than the 10-minute target; long gaps are normal, since every hash attempt is an independent lottery ticket.
It confirmed 3,877 transactions in 1.66 MB (99.8% of the 4 million weight-unit limit). The median transaction paid 1.83 sat/vB, up from 0.44 sat/vB in the block before, and all fees added up to 0.0229 BTC. With the 3.125 BTC subsidy of halving era 5, AntPool earned 3.1479 BTC for this block.
Block 971,721 is number 10 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 482; 2,006 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 973,727. The next halving is at block 1,050,000, 78,279 blocks after this one.
Its hash starts with 19 zeros: that is the proof of work, a number below the target that the whole network’s hashrate had to search for. AntPool found 226 blocks in the week before. Today the block has 11 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.