Bitcoin Faces Third Small Blockchain Reorg in Less Than Month
Bitcoin experienced another small blockchain reorganization on September 11 at block height 966,500. Two different mining pools, SpiderPool and AntPool, produced valid competing blocks built on the same parent block.
According to Galaxy Research, AntPool's ultimately successful block 966,500 had a timestamp of 11:30:30 UTC and contained 4,359 transactions. SpiderPool also produced a valid block 966,500, but Galaxy's node saw it first, making SpiderPool temporarily represent the head of the blockchain.
A miner in one part of the network might see SpiderPool's block first while another miner is working from AntPool's competing block. Galaxy's node was initially unaware that there were two versions of block 966,500 until AntPool produced block 966,501 on top of its version.
Galaxy's node then abandoned the SpiderPool version and switched to AntPool's branch, making the SpiderPool block a stale or orphaned block. The reward from the discarded block became unusable, while AntPool's winning block earned about 3.1411 BTC.