Bitcoin miner produces empty block at height 960,017, collecting zero in fees

A Bitcoin block mined on July 28, 2026, at approximately 02:28 UTC contained exactly zero user transactions. Block 960,017 included only the mandatory coinbase transaction, which is the automatic reward a miner receives for successfully adding a block to the chain, and collected 0 BTC in transaction fees.

The miner responsible is listed as “Unknown,” though some sources point to F2Pool as the likely culprit.

Why miners sometimes produce empty blocks

When a new block is found on the Bitcoin network, competing mining pools face a brief window where they haven’t fully validated the previous block’s transactions yet. During that interval, they have two choices: stop hashing and wait for full validation, or start working on a new block immediately using what’s called SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) mining.

In English: miners would rather submit an empty block and collect the block subsidy than risk wasting precious seconds validating transactions while a competitor beats them to the next block.

Empty blocks are getting rarer, not more common

Historical data indicates that empty blocks once accounted for over 10% of all mined blocks during Bitcoin’s early years. Today, that figure has dropped to less than 1%.

The decline is largely thanks to improvements in network infrastructure, faster block propagation protocols like compact blocks, and better validation software.

This isn’t the first empty block in recent memory, either. SpiderPool mined an empty block at height 954,352 on June 19, 2026, weighing just 1.16 kWU.

What this tells us about network demand

As of July 29, 2026, there has been no significant market reaction to this block. Bitcoin’s price hasn’t moved on the news, and no major analysts have flagged it as concerning.