The second-largest block by transaction count in Bitcoin history contained 11,255 transactions but brought its miner only about $180 in transaction fees.
According to a report by CoinDesk citing data from mempool.space, AntPool mined block 974.961 on Saturday. Transactions in the block paid a total of 240.533 satoshis in fees. At Bitcoin’s price on Sunday, that amounted to about $180.
AntPool’s total reward from the block was about $237,000. Nearly all of it came from the 3,125 BTC the network awards to the miner that mines a new block.
Transaction count neared the record, but fees lagged
Bitcoin’s transaction-count record belongs to a 12,239-transaction block mined by F2Pool in 2015. AntPool fell 984 transactions short of the record. The record-setting block collected about 94 times more in transaction fees, measured in Bitcoin.
Another block mined by AntPool on November 4 collected about $110 in fees for 10,573 transactions. Some of the small transactions CoinDesk examined in Saturday’s block paid a fee of just one satoshi each, or one hundred-millionth of a Bitcoin.
Miners’ block reward will decrease in 2028
The next halving is expected to take place around April 2028, reducing the amount of new Bitcoin awarded to miners per block from 3,125 BTC to 1,5625 BTC. The transaction fees collected by Saturday’s block amount to less than 0.2% of the per-block reward that will be cut in the halving.
Not investment advice.