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BTC - Block Time Interval (s)
Description
Bitcoin Block Time Interval shows the time delay in seconds between each block. The protocol adjusts other variables to keep the interval average at 10 minutes.
Bitcoin's USD Market Price is included for reference.
Pseudocode
for each block in blockchain:
blk_delay := block.time - block.prev_blk.time
(x,y) := (block.time, blk_delay)
for each hour in blockchain:
hr_blk_delay := avg(blockchain[hr_start:hr_end].blk_delay)
(x,y) := (hour, hr_blk_delay)
for each day in blockchain:
day_blk_delay := avg(blockchain[day_start:day_end].blk_delay)
(x,y) := (day, day_blk_delay)
Technical Info
The block time interval shows how well the Bitcoin protocol's difficulty mechanism maintains regularity and stability despite dynamic network conditions. It follows a Poisson distribution around 600s, but the variance is often high; many blocks come in mere seconds after the previous, while others take a full hour.
The block header's reported time is used for this metric. This time value is historically unreliable and not forced by the protocol to be chronological. There are several instances of sequential block heights reporting non-sequential epoch times!
- Hourly and daily aggregations are derived from block data using average for this metric.
- Hourly data contains occasional gaps; no blocks were generated during these times.
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