When a new block is found, mining pools send miners a block template with no transactions so they can start searching for the next block as soon as possible. They send a block template full of transactions right afterward, but a full block template is a bigger data transfer and takes slightly longer to reach miners.
In this intervening time, which is usually no more than 1-2 seconds, miners sometimes get lucky and find a new block using the empty block template.
https://mempool.space/docs/faq#why-empty-blocks
marcp /
npub1hk…860fu
2023-08-30 12:27:13
in reply to nevent1q…n28t
Author Public Key
npub1hkcgyqnsuaradq3g5hyvfdekwypc25494nmwggwpygxas7fcs4fst860fuPublished at
2023-08-30 12:27:13Event JSON
{
"id": "eaf6c9168a010cb244bc632e6c317d2a1c0cf74bd25a8ef92c610b550e8f8d0f",
"pubkey": "bdb0820270e747d68228a5c8c4b73671038552a5acf6e421c1220dd879388553",
"created_at": 1693398433,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"e",
"515ea7ec8bcd1cfd7a8e7fceeccb6bb6bd038064d181b651a76cc5ed3aad1065",
"",
"reply"
],
[
"p",
"5123a91b5954af9b9ca576cdc0cc7a10f9c61bde665b04fb5c137975fd9e8a29"
]
],
"content": "When a new block is found, mining pools send miners a block template with no transactions so they can start searching for the next block as soon as possible. They send a block template full of transactions right afterward, but a full block template is a bigger data transfer and takes slightly longer to reach miners.\n\nIn this intervening time, which is usually no more than 1-2 seconds, miners sometimes get lucky and find a new block using the empty block template.\n\nhttps://mempool.space/docs/faq#why-empty-blocks",
"sig": "abdf19644416d8f44cac0079d1a28a2025777dac5a37a63dad16c9d5034698ee096e26ac056eacc318560b730e36d112924a038d0b0be469c39d7f5cac157714"
}