<p>The time to produce the next block is completely unaffected by the number of unconfirmed transactions.</p>
<p>The time is generally expected to follow a Poisson distribution as explained in answers to <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/22978/13866">a related question</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p>I'm no statistician so what follows may be nonsense:</p>
<p>A Poisson distribution with a lambda of 6 shown as a probability mass looks like this</p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/Vd3Rv.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Vd3Rv.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>So in a thousand hours I might expect to see</p>
<ul>
<li>160 hours where 6 blocks were produced</li>
<li>45 hours where 2 blocks were produced</li>
</ul>
<p>Either that or something odd has happened, like a couple of large mining pools going offline.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to gather some of these sort of stats from the blockchain record but I expect this has already been done somewhere.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-09T16:12:53.063Z
The numbers look correct to me.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-09T14:32:38.383Z
2021-06-09T14:39:05.653Z
2021-06-09T14:39:05.653Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>Why is it taking so long to mine a single block. Like last hour only 2 blocks have been mined. Currently been 45 min since the last block was mined.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/blocks" rel="nofollow noreferrer">blockchair</a></p>
<pre><code>Hour Blocks
 5  *****    
 6  ******   
 7  ******   
 8  *****   
 9  ******** 
10  ***      
11  ****     
12  **       
13  **       
</code></pre>
<p>What could make 45 minutes go by without a single block being mined and having so many unconfirmed transactions still?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-09T13:22:48.230Z
Related: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/22984/5406, https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/51756/5406,
Murch
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-06-09T23:12:49.900Z
Related too: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/77783/shortest-and-longest-block-interval-time-ever-recorded-in-bitcoin
Rexcirus
<mining-theory><block-interval><blockspace-market>
Why can the block production rate be as low as two per hour?
Nicc Bars
# Why can the block production rate be as low as two per hour?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-06-09)

Why is it taking so long to mine a single block. Like last hour only 2 blocks have been mined. Currently been 45 min since the last block was mined.

According to [blockchair](https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/blocks)

```
Hour Blocks
 5  *****    
 6  ******   
 7  ******   
 8  *****   
 9  ******** 
10  ***      
11  ****     
12  **       
13  **       

```

What could make 45 minutes go by without a single block being mined and having so many unconfirmed transactions still?

**Tags:** mining-theory, block-interval, blockspace-market

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Related: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/22984/5406, https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/51756/5406,  
> **username_2**: Related too: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/77783/shortest-and-longest-block-interval-time-ever-recorded-in-bitcoin  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2021-06-09. Score: 7

The time to produce the next block is completely unaffected by the number of unconfirmed transactions.

The time is generally expected to follow a Poisson distribution as explained in answers to [a related question](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/22978/13866).

---

I'm no statistician so what follows may be nonsense:

A Poisson distribution with a lambda of 6 shown as a probability mass looks like this

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/Vd3Rv.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/Vd3Rv.png)

So in a thousand hours I might expect to see

* 160 hours where 6 blocks were produced
* 45 hours where 2 blocks were produced

Either that or something odd has happened, like a couple of large mining pools going offline.

It would be interesting to gather some of these sort of stats from the blockchain record but I expect this has already been done somewhere.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: The numbers look correct to me.  

---

