This Bitcoin block is new for me. Can anyone explain what happened?

[pakhitheboss]

I was going through the mempool and I while checking the blocks that got confirmed, I found these two blocks which for me do not make any sense. As my understanding goes these two blocks were mined but the fee is missing. My first question is, What is this called, and how it is done? My second question who is responsible for it? My third question is has this happened in the past? I am confused as this is the first time I have seen it and I want to know more about it. I am sharing the screenshot below.

[Zaguru12]

That’s called an empty block which were both mined by Antpool and it is normal although not common. Mining pools starts mining blocks first before actually having to validate all transactions to be included into the block and as such only the Coinbase transaction is included and not to waste Power they go ahead to mine the block like that. They do not include transactions first because they don’t want to include transactions from the previous blocks mistakenly and invalidate their own with duplicate transactions.

Here is a list of empty blocks https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/blocks?q=time(2009-01-01%2000:00:00..2023-12-31%2023:59:59),transaction_count(1)#f=time,guessed_miner,transaction_count,size,id

[Charles-Tim]

The blocks were mine faster before miners were able to include any transaction into their candidate block. You can take a look at the transactions, they were mined in just some seconds.

The mining pool that mined the two blocks also mined the third block which has transactions included.

[franky1]

The blocks were mine faster before miners were able to include any transaction into their candidate block. You can take a look at the transactions, they were mined in just some seconds.

The mining pool that mined the two blocks also mined the third block which has transactions included.

miners dont see/touch transactions.. mining pool(managers) do... miners mine block candidates passed to them
mining pool(managers) dont mine, they validate and collate transactions into candidate blocks


so wording it correctly
miners mined a candidate block before a mining pool was able to include any transactions

[un_rank]

miners dont see/touch transactions.. mining pool(managers) do... miners mine block candidates passed to them
mining pool(managers) dont mine, they validate and collate transactions into candidate blocks

This is a bit confusing, I assumed that miners and mining pools can exist independently. Miners can join pools but they can also operate independently and in that case would not need mining pools to pass off candidate blocks to them.

- Jay -

[alastantiger]

That’s called an empty block which were both mined by Antpool and it is normal although not common.

Why do you call it an empty block if at least 1 transaction was recorded in them. Secondly, assuming it is an empty block as you have called it, do miners get a reward from an empty block?

[logfiles]

Why do you call it an empty block if at least 1 transaction was recorded in them. Secondly, assuming it is an empty block as you have called it, do miners get a reward from an empty block?

Because that one transaction you see is known as the Coinbase transaction, which consists of newly generated Bitcoins to be paid to the mining pool (miners). So yes, miners will get the block reward (6.25 BTC) exclusive of all other transaction fees

For example, This is the Coinbase transaction - https://mempool.space/tx/4ef407af7ded0c34482c41b728a54ebd39e304b525a952355dde67de142e3a50

[Zaguru12]

Why do you call it an empty block if at least 1 transaction was recorded in them. Secondly, assuming it is an empty block as you have called it, do miners get a reward from an empty block?

Yes it is sometimes called empty because ideally you’re not including any transactions into that block. The transaction you saw there is called a Coinbase transaction which is actually different from other transactions because it doesn’t have an input and it is use to collect the block subsidy for that particular block mined.

Yes the block subsidy or reward is giving to any mined block, the idea is not that transaction must be included before block reward is paid to the miner. As long as the block is mined correctly like you saw there now the miner will receive the block reward in that coin base transaction there.

Look at that blocks there you will see subsidy + fees=6.25 bitcoin. That  is the block reward which is currently that 6.25 bitcoin and since there wasn’t any included transaction there wasn’t any other fee collected.

This block is an empty block with only the block reward https://mempool.space/block/00000000000000000002166eed686f576b3dbac17dead73feaec36d0697c6699

This is a mined block with transactions included in it. You can see the subsidy and the fees collected from those transactions https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000029f4f67d2e757022e9c051aec6138efc55d3a570b5805

[MusaMohamed]

This is a bit confusing, I assumed that miners and mining pools can exist independently. Miners can join pools but they can also operate independently and in that case would not need mining pools to pass off candidate blocks to them.

With Bitcoin hash rate and difficulty nowadays, miners usually join mining pools and no longer do solo mining Bitcoin. So miners are relying on mining pools and they have to follow rules of each mining pool.

Empty blocks are because of mining pools, not Bitcoin miners and you can say similarly with Coinbase message that is marked by mining pools, not a solo miner.

Empty blocks, full mempool.

[satscraper]

Miners can join pools but they can also operate independently and in that case would not need mining pools to pass off candidate blocks to them.

To operate independently they need to be in possession of hashpower comparable to mining pools.

Latency between block template with a single coinbase  transaction and that one  full of transactions would exists even if virtual miner has managed to gather around himself the tons of ASICS to be independent of mining pool. Mining is based on the  server - client architecture  This latency (which is side-effect of mining architecture) is the main reason of so called empty blocks. Thus virtual individul miner (with hashpower comparable to mining pools) would also produce empty blocks.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Yes, it is a bit difficult to understand the first time you encounter it. We had a discussion about it on my local board a while ago and mikeywith gave us quite a detailed explanation about it, but in a nutshell, the explanations given so far in the thread are good. You will always see empty blocks in blocks that are mined in a very short time interval from the previous one.

[franky1]

miners dont see/touch transactions.. mining pool(managers) do... miners mine block candidates passed to them
mining pool(managers) dont mine, they validate and collate transactions into candidate blocks

This is a bit confusing, I assumed that miners and mining pools can exist independently. Miners can join pools but they can also operate independently and in that case would not need mining pools to pass off candidate blocks to them.

- Jay -

we are not in the solo mining days of 2009-2011

these days miners are ASICS (2013+)
the act of mining is the hashing of a block candidate

asics have no hard drive to store the blockchain.
asics do not collate transactions
all a asic does is hash256 a header(mine)

even the misleading concept of "solo ckpool" is still a pool managing the transactions where only the reward is paid out to the winning miner of the pool that solved the difficult hash..

To operate independently they need to be in possession of hashpower comparable to mining pools.

thats just a private pool.
asics miners do not store the blockchain so you still need a manager to collate transactions and communicate that block template to your miners

[coiningz]

Sometimes i hate that random, you can get 2 blocks in minute or don't get a single one in a hour. Sometimes 1 confirmation takes too much time

[EL MOHA]

Sometimes i hate that random, you can get 2 blocks in minute or don't get a single one in a hour. Sometimes 1 confirmation takes too much time

That’s one of the most interesting myth of bitcoin, it’s block time interval although averagely set at a default of 10 minutes. The time varies because of the ability of a miner to get the correct block hash that Should he below the target value. It is this target value that is adjusted every 2016 blocks just to keep the 10 minutes average in check. Before the block time interval sometimes was higher due to maybe lack of hash power or lack of many miners. This days we have quite a number of mining pools with high hashing power so the issue of 2 hours block time interval isn’t that much common again. But still we can’t get a definite time interval because of the target that needs to be meet which depends on the miners finding it.

[un_rank]

we are not in the solo mining days of 2009-2011...

This does not mean that the language used to describe bitcoin mining has changed and your earlier comment will be confusing to newbies reading your message.

- Jay -

[nakamura12]

That’s called an empty block which were both mined by Antpool and it is normal although not common.

Why do you call it an empty block if at least 1 transaction was recorded in them. Secondly, assuming it is an empty block as you have called it, do miners get a reward from an empty block?

The only reason for why it is called empty block because there's not a single transactions from the blockchain data like the transactions from previous block for example and that's why it is considered as empty even though you can see that there is a single transaction in the block. Zaguru12 explanation is also correct and the similarity of my answer to his answer is that the block doesn't have any transactions included from the mempool.

[nelson4lov]

So the key takeaway from this is that there are indeed empty blocks on Bitcoin and empty blocks also earn block rewards (aka subsidy) but no fees.

but @ Zaguru12 mentioned here that blocks like this are normal but not common. However, I have a question, someone should help me out here. IIRC there is a bitcoin block every 10 minutes. What happens in a situation where no mining pools were able to get a block in that time?

Btw, for anyone interested, here is a link to empty blocks info on mempool FAQ page: https://mempool.space/docs/faq#why-empty-blocks

[Zaguru12]

The only reason for why it is called empty block because there's not a single transactions from the blockchain data like the transactions from previous block for example and that's why it is considered as empty even though you can see that there is a single transaction in the block. Zaguru12 explanation is also correct and the similarity of my answer to his answer is that the block doesn't have any transactions included from the mempool.

Actually the empty block must still contains some data from the previous block. Each block has its block header it is this block header that has the information of the block like its Merkle tree, Nonce and the block hash of the previous block. And afterwards a candidate block where transactions from memory pool are temporarily stored, but for this empty blocks it is just the Coinbase transaction that is in the candidate block.

However, I have a question, someone should help me out here. IIRC there is a bitcoin block every 10 minutes. What happens in a situation where no mining pools were able to get a block in that time?

Yes the default time to get a block mined is 10 minutes but that doesn’t mean that this 10 minutes is the only time a block is mined, a block can be mined in just few seconds or a block mining interval can be no more than that 10 minutes there is no certainty as to when. That’s why we usually have a difficult adjustment every 2 weeks (2016 blocks to precise). The adjustment is calculate from the average time it has taken the 2016 blocks to mined, if the average is more than the default 10 minutes then the difficulty for the next 2016 blocks are reduced and if the average is less than 10 minutes then the difficulty is increased all this is done to keep the default 10 minutes in check.

But just as explained it is not a must that a block must be mined within than 10 minutes, it can be more and even hours to get a new block.

[Kemarit]

I was going through the mempool and I while checking the blocks that got confirmed, I found these two blocks which for me do not make any sense. As my understanding goes these two blocks were mined but the fee is missing. My first question is, What is this called, and how it is done? My second question who is responsible for it? My third question is has this happened in the past? I am confused as this is the first time I have seen it and I want to know more about it. I am sharing the screenshot below.

If you read what mempool says,

Why are there empty blocks?

When a new block is found, mining pools send miners a block template with no transactions so they can start searching for the next block as soon as possible. They send a block template full of transactions right afterward, but a full block template is a bigger data transfer and takes slightly longer to reach miners.

In this intervening time, which is usually no more than 1-2 seconds, miners sometimes get lucky and find a new block using the empty block template.

You can also read explanation here as this topic has been recently discussed as well.

• 0 transaction block
• Why not to mine on pools mining empty blocks, and why do pools mine empty blocks
• Why did miners waste much block space when there is need

[pakhitheboss]

Why are there empty blocks?

When a new block is found, mining pools send miners a block template with no transactions so they can start searching for the next block as soon as possible. They send a block template full of transactions right afterward, but a full block template is a bigger data transfer and takes slightly longer to reach miners.

In this intervening time, which is usually no more than 1-2 seconds, miners sometimes get lucky and find a new block using the empty block template.

You can also read explanation here as this topic has been recently discussed as well.

• 0 transaction block
• Why not to mine on pools mining empty blocks, and why do pools mine empty blocks
• Why did miners waste much block space when there is need

Hey! Thanks for sharing all the resources and everyone who replied to this thread. As it was the first time, I encountered a block like these two I got confused and without looking for any information in the meme pool and the forum, I went ahead and asked the question once again from the forum. It is interesting to read all the replies and understand why an empty block appears. Bitcoin POW protocola is a unique and at the same time a complicated algorithm as sometime the block gets mined in just 9 minutes and a few times it can take up to 20 minutes. I sometimes tend to observe the pool and that is why, I came up with these two blocks which for me was weird as they did not have any fees associated with them.

I am not going to lock this thread as someone like me might not be aware of it. I will keep this thread open and if anyone else has more information then do share it.