Consecutive Block Patterns Don't Match What Hashrate Predicts

sorukumar · March 30, 2026, 11:15pm

Been poking at consecutive block data since recent two block re-org.

A few things don’t square with what independent competing Poisson processes would predict:

7+ block streaks are 3–7× more frequent than hashrate predicts. Foundry (~24% share average since 2021) has 33 such streaks vs. ~10 expected. 3.17× over. F2Pool has one such event but at 6.69×, sample of one, but that’s not a luck margin
Win a block, you’re more likely to win the next one too. P(same pool wins N+1 | just won N) should equal hash share exactly. 1× baseline. SpiderPool runs at 2.70×, SecPool 2.58×, Poolin 2.31×. Upon solving N you already hold the header; everyone else is still propagating.
Some pools are sequencing consecutive blocks within 30 seconds. At 600s mean block time that sub-30s tail should be thin. It isn’t, hundreds of same-pool pairs, concentrated in the pools above. That timing window is inconsistent with full block validation before starting the next template
SpiderPool: 1.74% empty blocks (104/5,963), highest in the dataset, and they lead the second-block uplift too. Foundry, despite the streak anomalies, is 0 empty in 67,531 blocks.
Binance Pool’s 30-day empty block rate (1.06%) has gotten worse, not better ,against their 0.43% all-time average. Every other historical offender has trended toward zero. Worth watching.

Here are some charts:

Pls visit to see the charts and number: Bitcoin Mining Pools | Bitcoin Data Labs . The analysis is based on post-2021 data.

Let me know your feedback.Happy to dig into methodology.

Any thoughts on what else we should look at to understand it better.