About block 973,998
Bitcoin block 973,998 was mined by F2Pool on October 31, 2026 at 4:49 PM UTC, 23 min 53 s after block 973,997. That is slower than the 10-minute target; long gaps are normal, since every hash attempt is an independent draw with the same tiny chance.
It confirmed 2,542 transactions in 1.35 MB (99.9% of the 4 million weight-unit limit). The median transaction paid 3.36 sat/vB, up from 2.06 sat/vB in the block before, and all fees added up to 0.0395 BTC. With the 3.125 BTC subsidy of halving era 5, F2Pool earned 3.1645 BTC for this block.
Block 973,998 is number 271 of 2,016 in difficulty epoch 483; 1,745 blocks remain until the next difficulty adjustment at block 975,743. The next halving is at block 1,050,000, 76,002 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. F2Pool found 166 blocks in the week before. Today the block has 11 confirmations, so it is settled beyond any practical doubt.