Probability of Next Block Within 10 Minutes

[Bitcoin++]

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

Or within 1 minute?
Or 10 seconds?
Or 1 second?

[Parazyd]

Bitcoin's designed to put out a new block every ten minutes. And it's going good. Difficulty controls it and most of the blocks are mined 10 minutes apart.
There are a few exceptions when two blocks are found very fast, in a row, and that's just called luck.

There's no probability actually. It just averages around 10 minutes per block.

This could be an interesting read for you too: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135982.0

[Foxpup]

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%

Or within 1 minute?

9.516%

Or 10 seconds?

1.653%

Or 1 second?

0.167%

[Bitcoin++]

+1 to Foxpup. 

[maurya78]

Foxpup, that's a killer response

[548845]

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%

Or within 1 minute?

9.516%

Or 10 seconds?

1.653%

Or 1 second?

0.167%

Now THAT is a killer response!

http://weknowgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/billy-dee-williams-clapping.gif

[franky1]

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%

Or within 1 minute?

9.516%

Or 10 seconds?

1.653%

Or 1 second?

0.167%

[AgentofCoin]

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%

Or within 1 minute?

9.516%

Or 10 seconds?

1.653%

Or 1 second?

0.167%

       

[bf4btc]

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%

Or within 1 minute?

9.516%

Or 10 seconds?

1.653%

Or 1 second?

0.167%

Technically speaking the chances are somewhat better then this because additional miners have apparently been added to the network (net of miners that have been removed, in terms of hashrate). The above percentages would be correct in the event that the apparent hashrate was exactly the same as it was when the difficulty last changed

[Soros Shorts]

It might be a good idea to also mention that the probability that 0 blocks are found within the next 30 minutes is 4.978%. Then maybe people would stop complaining when we get the occasional over 30-minute block.

[Flashman]

Those longuns are easy to predict.... they happen about the once every few weeks that I decide to send a transaction

[jasemoney]

Those longuns are easy to predict.... they happen about the once every few weeks that I decide to send a transaction

you must send when I send.
rambling on the side:
I always thought it might be an interesting energy savings experiment to run a farm but only mine at near the peak of the distribution/time chart. could you save a ton of power and hash more effectively vs power. (of course you'd have to be solo mining and we're a bit past that heh, otherwise your just submitting less shares at an equal pace for the offtime)

[spirit-receiver]

... at near the peak of the distribution/time chart. could you save a ton of power and hash more effectively vs power. ...

What do you mean? I think you're wrong here.

The probability of you finding a block in any time period of fixed length should be independent of what everybody else does (if we ignore difficulty changes).

[Crypty3]

Those longuns are easy to predict.... they happen about the once every few weeks that I decide to send a transaction

http://media.giphy.com/media/AEqnsS0v5jHXO/giphy.gif

[Bit_Happy]

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%
....

Wouldn't a number closer to 50% make sense for the 10 minute mark?

[Flashman]

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%
....

Wouldn't a number closer to 50% make sense for the 10 minute mark?

Only in as much as it would be a lot easier to make Pi equal 3.0000000

[Foxpup]

Wouldn't a number closer to 50% make sense for the 10 minute mark?

Of course not. 10 minutes is the mean, not the median. The median (the point where 50% are higher and 50% are lower) is 6 minutes and 56 seconds. It should be expected that the median will be much smaller than the mean because there is a lower bound to the block time (zero) but no upper bound. It is possible to have a block time to be 20 minutes longer than average, but it is obviously not possible for the block time to be 20 minutes shorter than average (because it would be less than zero). Thus there a few very long block times that aren't (and can't possibly be) matched by very short block times, and this skews the average.

[Gleb Gamow]

It's a Poisson process, with a mean of 10 minutes. So...

What is the probability that the next block will be found within 10 minutes from now?

63.212%

Or within 1 minute?

9.516%

Or 10 seconds?

1.653%

Or 1 second?

0.167%

[Bit_Happy]

Wouldn't a number closer to 50% make sense for the 10 minute mark?

Of course not. 10 minutes is the mean, not the median. The median (the point where 50% are higher and 50% are lower) is 6 minutes and 56 seconds. It should be expected that the median will be much smaller than the mean because there is a lower bound to the block time (zero) but no upper bound. It is possible to have a block time to be 20 minutes longer than average, but it is obviously not possible for the block time to be 20 minutes shorter than average (because it would be less than zero). Thus there a few very long block times that aren't (and can't possibly be) matched by very short block times, and this skews the average.

Thank you for the details. I used to score really high on tests, but seem to have been dragged back towards the median.   

[justusranvier]

It might be a good idea to also mention that the probability that 0 blocks are found within the next 30 minutes is 4.978%. Then maybe people would stop complaining when we get the occasional over 30-minute block.

You can also express that percentage as "on average, once every 25.1 days we should see 30 minutes with zero blocks found."