6 blocks in 4 minutes

[biodieselchris]

and then none for almost an hour: 

Height   Age   Transactions   Total Sent   Relayed By   Size (kB)
366198   55 minutes   180   $ 326,607.88   8baochi   98.73
366197   56 minutes   2   $ 7,065.06   BTCChina Pool   0.46
366196   57 minutes   512   $ 198,246.97   F2Pool   243.99
366195   58 minutes   252   $ 499,984.66   EclipseMC   236.32
366194   59 minutes   1   $ 6,950.00   BW.COM   0.23
366193   1 hour 0 minutes   913   $ 1,945,522.50   BW.COM   555.81

[odolvlobo]

random
[ran-duh m]
adjective
1.
proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern:
the random selection of numbers.

[notbatman]

and then none for almost an hour: 

Height   Age   Transactions   Total Sent   Relayed By   Size (kB)
366198   55 minutes   180   $ 326,607.88   8baochi   98.73
366197   56 minutes   2   $ 7,065.06   BTCChina Pool   0.46
366196   57 minutes   512   $ 198,246.97   F2Pool   243.99
366195   58 minutes   252   $ 499,984.66   EclipseMC   236.32
366194   59 minutes   1   $ 6,950.00   BW.COM   0.23
366193   1 hour 0 minutes   913   $ 1,945,522.50   BW.COM   555.81

I see Josh is still mining away happily on his customers rigs...

[UserVVIP]

Oh my god something fishy happened. Quick, everyone, sell sell sell! Something weird happened, spread the nws and get out while you still can!!!

[Amph]

random
[ran-duh m]
adjective
1.
proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern:
the random selection of numbers.

in this case i see it as oscillations of the average, with the aim to maintain the equilibrium in the long term, between positive and negative

[notbatman]

There's nothing unusual here, if the blocks were evenly spaced out then it wouldn't be random...

[poncho32]

Getting six blocks in four minutes was as inevitable as getting six blocks in an hour. Repeat the process of tossing a coin six times and eventually you will inevitably get six heads in a row. Generally the results of random events cluster near an average, but occasionally what seems to be an extremely unlikely sequence will inevitably happen. The Bitcoin protocol has seen this phenomenon frequently reoccur and will continue to do so unless the protocol is changed.

[btccashacc]

and then none for almost an hour: 

Height   Age   Transactions   Total Sent   Relayed By   Size (kB)
366198   55 minutes   180   $ 326,607.88   8baochi   98.73
366197   56 minutes   2   $ 7,065.06   BTCChina Pool   0.46
366196   57 minutes   512   $ 198,246.97   F2Pool   243.99
366195   58 minutes   252   $ 499,984.66   EclipseMC   236.32
366194   59 minutes   1   $ 6,950.00   BW.COM   0.23
366193   1 hour 0 minutes   913   $ 1,945,522.50   BW.COM   555.81

I see Josh is still mining away happily on his customers rigs...

josh garza from GAW miner

[notbatman]

and then none for almost an hour:  

Height   Age   Transactions   Total Sent   Relayed By   Size (kB)
366198   55 minutes   180   $ 326,607.88   8baochi   98.73
366197   56 minutes   2   $ 7,065.06   BTCChina Pool   0.46
366196   57 minutes   512   $ 198,246.97   F2Pool   243.99
366195   58 minutes   252   $ 499,984.66   EclipseMC   236.32
366194   59 minutes   1   $ 6,950.00   BW.COM   0.23
366193   1 hour 0 minutes   913   $ 1,945,522.50   BW.COM   555.81

I see Josh is still mining away happily on his customers rigs...

josh garza from GAW miner

No, Zerlan from BFL.

Get your scammers named Josh straight!

[ticoti]

mean time for blocks is 10 minutes and it its proven that it is real, but that means that things like that may happen

[TrueBeliever]

Interestingly 6 sequential blocks in 4 minutes is fast enough that it would surely lead to propagation issues, whereby on the other side of the world there were invalid blocks created and subsequently discarded.  Does anyone know on average how long it takes for a new block to propagate completely through the network?  ie how many seconds/minutes does the last node waste on solving a block that has already been created?

[subSTRATA]

its not that surprising, maybe uncommon for it to occur, but that's the extent of it. miners pretty much guess the hashes that will solve the blocks, and it seems the miners just got lucky in guessing during this hour, nothing more, nothing less. ive seen blocks get confirmed within a minute of each other too, its not something to get that excited over.

[biodieselchris]

For more clarity, I was wondering what the probability of such of an event was.

[btccashacc]

and then none for almost an hour:  

Height   Age   Transactions   Total Sent   Relayed By   Size (kB)
366198   55 minutes   180   $ 326,607.88   8baochi   98.73
366197   56 minutes   2   $ 7,065.06   BTCChina Pool   0.46
366196   57 minutes   512   $ 198,246.97   F2Pool   243.99
366195   58 minutes   252   $ 499,984.66   EclipseMC   236.32
366194   59 minutes   1   $ 6,950.00   BW.COM   0.23
366193   1 hour 0 minutes   913   $ 1,945,522.50   BW.COM   555.81

I see Josh is still mining away happily on his customers rigs...

josh garza from GAW miner

No, Zerlan from BFL.

Get your scammers named Josh straight!

ohh Thank's

[biodieselchris]

random
[ran-duh m]
adjective
1.
proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern:
the random selection of numbers.

Probability:
A number between 0 and 1.

[odolvlobo]

Here is something to think about:

Regardless of how long ago the last block was added, the average time to the next block is 10 minutes from now.

[Derrike]

It is not fishy that 6 blocks in 4 minutes.
It sometimes take more time and sometimes take less to mine the bitcoin blocks.

[Kazimir]

Here is something to think about:

Regardless of how long ago the last block was added, the average time to the next block is 10 minutes from now.

Yep, and if starting now you wait 2 hours and no block gets mined, then the expected time for the next block to appear is still 10 minutes after that (rather than 'any moment now!')

Exponential probability distribution vs people's intuition

On topic: TS doesn't understand the maths behind Bitcoin's block time statistics. You should raise an alarmed topic if something like 6 blocks in 4 minutes (or zero blocks in an hour) would not occur once in a while.

[Jace]

For more clarity, I was wondering what the probability of such of an event was.

The time it takes to mine one block is exponentially distributed with λ (mean) = 10 minutes.

This means the total time to mine four blocks is Erlang-distributed with k=4 and λ=10 minutes, and the probability to find 4 blocks within 6 minutes is about 0.336%.

So, roughly speaking (and strongly simplified, probability-wise), once every 100/0.33581 ≈ 298 chunks of 4 blocks, or once every (100/0.33581)*4*10 minutes ≈ 8.3 days, you can expect 4 subsequent blocks to appear within 6 minutes.

[HCLivess]

OMG it's a new ASIC!