Another Empty Block? Antpool Strikes Again

Antpool just mined block 818960 completely empty. I can't believe this is happening again, especially when fees are sky-high.

Seems like luck played a big role here. They mined block 818959 and immediately got lucky again with block 818960 before adding any transactions.

Exactly, empty blocks can happen if a pool mines a block really quickly after another. It’s not always sabotage.

I think the zero fees might be due to the next block being broadcasted before they could add transactions. It helps miners get the next block quicker.

When a pool mines, they have to update their mempool and collate fresh transactions, which takes a few seconds. That's why they often send out empty blocks in the meantime.

If we're talking sabotage, I'm not sure it affects network security. Just seems wasteful to ignore all those mempool transactions.

Totally agree. Antpool could've included transactions since they know what's valid. They might just want the block reward and skip the verification.

It's frustrating for regular users, but honestly, the bigger losers are the miners in Antpool. They’re losing out on fees.

Check out this link for a look at empty blocks over time. Lots of data there, but visualizing it isn’t easy.

Back in the day, it was normal to have empty blocks since no one was using Bitcoin. Times were different.

Exactly, there were moments with no transactions at all. Miners had no choice but to mine empty blocks back then.

Just because they mined an empty block doesn’t mean it’s a conspiracy. They just happened to find it right after the last one.

I doubt they’d want to leave out all transactions intentionally. It’s more likely they didn’t have time to include them.

If they could send out a filled block candidate immediately after verifying transactions, it’d be great. But that would lead to other issues.

The logistics of creating a full block while processing can get messy. Empty blocks sometimes help keep things simple.

Next block had 0.458 BTC in fees... but that was 12 minutes later. Higher fees could’ve been missed.

Exactly, they’d risk 6.25 BTC for a tiny fee gain. Not smart to gamble like that.

Stompix gets it. You don’t risk losing the jackpot for a small extra win.

Are they really taking long to add transactions? Seconds seem enough to fit at least some in.

Not sabotage, just bad luck. Developers left a loophole open. They could force a timing mechanism to load transactions.