Blocks arrive at roughly regular intervals — about ten minutes on Bitcoin, seconds on many other networks — and each references its predecessor, forming the chain.
Block times matter in an investigation because they set the tempo of a trace. On a fast, cheap network, funds can pass through dozens of addresses in the time a single Bitcoin block takes to appear.
Related terms
Confirmation
A block added on top of the block containing your transaction; more confirmations mean less chance of reversal.
Gas
The fee paid to have a transaction processed, denominated in the network's native asset.
Network
The distributed system that records and validates transactions, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or Tron.
More in Networks
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