Extended Bitcoin block times have been in the headlines recently, but are they really that big of a deal — or even very common?
A Bitcoin (BTC) block that took over an hour to mine made headlines earlier in November. This is despite Bitcoin’s core protocol being written to aim to mine a block every 10 minutes.
Block 815,690 is the latest outlier to generate press speculation. This block took one hour and nine minutes to mine on Nov. 7. Public interest in an hour-plus confirmation time is not a singular event. Roughly once or twice a year, a media outlet picks up on a long block validation event and decides to run with the story.
On Oct. 17, 2022, a prominent crypto news site reported on a block that took one hour and 25 minutes to mine, which spurred a flurry of similar reports. As the story spread widely on social media, some fans reveled in the relative speed of their favored centralized altcoin.
