About block 971,993
Bitcoin block 971,993 was mined by AntPool on October 18, 2026 at 12:14 PM UTC, 19 min 47 s after block 971,992. That is slower than the 10-minute target; long gaps are normal, since every hash attempt is an independent lottery ticket.
It confirmed 4,161 transactions in 1.75 MB (99.8% of the 4 million weight-unit limit). The median transaction paid 1.21 sat/vB, and all fees added up to 0.0237 BTC. With the 3.125 BTC subsidy of halving era 5, AntPool earned 3.1487 BTC for this block.
Block 971,993 is number 282 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 482; 1,734 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 973,727. The next halving is at block 1,050,000, 78,007 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 234 blocks in the week before. Today the block has 9 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.