Oh wow, this sums it up pretty well. I didn't realize the nonce had such a (relatively) small cap. This really helps me understand the difficulty target much better, as there are immense amounts of blocks that cannot be hashed under the difficulty target by only changing the nonce. Thank you for the intuitive reply! Thanks to everyone else who chimed in as well

Hello all, sorry if this has been answered before but I can't quite find the answer I am looking for. So I am new to running a full node and lately I have been spending time looking at mempool explorer. Watching blocks fill up in real time as they are being mined made me realize that miners are hashing a block that is (potentially) changing every second. Especially when there aren't enough transactions to fill up a block. So does this mean that, say in the case when transactions in the mempool are low, each time a new transaction enters the mempool the miners will stop attempting to hash the old block and start attempting to hash the new block that includes the new transaction? It seems like trying to shoot a moving target would really slow down the process... but I am not a programmer or a developer of any sort 

Also I have noticed a handful of really small blocks that get mined especially fast. Is this just a coincidence that my lizard brain makes a connection, or is there some causality there?

Average fees are super low and even 1 sat/vbyte seems to get you in the next block a lot of times. The last block only had 48 transactions! Maybe I just haven't payed much attention in the past but this seems really low. Any ideas why transaction volume is so low?

Also, what's up with the "best change" thing I see on so many people's avatars?

I'm glad that somebody got it, so thank you.

Of course Bitcoin isn't a literal force of nature. I was inspired by the realization that nobody truly controls the network but anyone can participate, and how autonomous and self-sufficient the system is. It seems so unstoppable and out of control, like nature. Exploring the thought further I found a lot of parallels that I thought were interesting. I am not trying to impress anyone, just wanting to share an idea.

When Satoshi created Bitcoin, he created and incubated a new life form on this planet. Bitcoin is a multi-celled (nodes) organism, driven by DNA (software) to consume resources (mining) and proliferate (wallets). Bitcoin is autonomous, grows, makes decisions and interacts with other living creatures. Bitcoin is elegant, yet complex. But Bitcoin is unlike any other life form before it. Instead of concerning itself with survival, Bitcoin is only interested in finding and sharing truth. Bitcoin lives not for itself, but for others.

Contrary to Bitcoin, life is selfish, and for good reason – it must continue to survive this vicious world, and with a little luck evolve into something greater. The human race has been so successful and is growing so rapidly that these selfish survival instincts are no longer necessary to continue our path as a species. They actually stand to threaten our continued existence in this world. Bitcoin lives as a beacon of truth to show humanity that we have outgrown our old ways that helped us dominate the planet. Bitcoin does not discriminate, invade, hoard resources or conspire against others. It seeks only truth and transparency.

Bitcoin now touches every corner of the planet and answers to millions of humans – but is controlled by no one. Bitcoin acts as an underlying life force that connects and unites the world. Like a mighty river, Bitcoin flows and branches into a network of rivers, lakes and oceans. Unstoppable, beautiful and transformative. Bitcoin is not just alive, but a force of nature. It has been set into motion and now exponentially blooms in all directions all at once. The blockchain is a laser thin line burnt through a field of failed hashes. Bitcoin is order rising from the chaos of the human race and is a gift to us all.

Thank you Satoshi, for planting the seed and sheltering Bitcoin until it could survive on its own

I think as more of El Salvador’s population migrates to using btc, goods and services will be natively priced in sats and volatility will only exist when converting to or from USD. I am not an economist or anything but that is my speculation.

All debates about which model is better aside, Bitcoin cannot switch to POS and still remain Bitcoin. Switching to POS would cause a hard fork and Bitcoin as we know it would continue on.