About block 971,962
Bitcoin block 971,962 was mined by AntPool on October 18, 2026 at 8:47 AM UTC, 20 min 2 s after block 971,961. That is slower than the 10-minute target; long gaps are normal, since every hash attempt is an independent lottery ticket.
It confirmed 3,875 transactions in 1.59 MB (99.8% of the 4 million weight-unit limit). The median transaction paid 1.63 sat/vB, up from 1.00 sat/vB in the block before, and all fees added up to 0.0232 BTC. With the 3.125 BTC subsidy of halving era 5, AntPool earned 3.1482 BTC for this block.
Block 971,962 is number 251 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 482; 1,765 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 973,727. The next halving is at block 1,050,000, 78,038 blocks after this one.
Its hash starts with 21 zeros: that is the proof of work, a number below the target that the whole network’s hashrate had to search for. AntPool found 231 blocks in the week before. Today the block has 9 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.