About block 971,944
Bitcoin block 971,944 was mined by AntPool on October 18, 2026 at 4:20 AM UTC, 25 min 16 s after block 971,943. That is slower than the 10-minute target; long gaps are normal, since every hash attempt is an independent lottery ticket.
It confirmed 3,499 transactions in 1.49 MB (99.8% of the 4 million weight-unit limit). The median transaction paid 2.00 sat/vB, up from 0.30 sat/vB in the block before, and all fees added up to 0.0355 BTC. With the 3.125 BTC subsidy of halving era 5, AntPool earned 3.1605 BTC for this block.
Block 971,944 is number 233 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 482; 1,783 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 973,727. The next halving is at block 1,050,000, 78,056 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 230 blocks in the week before. Today the block has 9 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.