Bitcoin empty blocks do not happen because miners "did not see" pending transactions. They happen because miners are racing against time. When a new block is broadcast, a mining pool needs a short moment to download and verify that block, and to pick transactions from its own mempool for the next block. During this window, continuing to mine with the old transaction list is risky. The old list may include transactions that were just confirmed. Including them again would make the new block invalid. To avoid wasting hash power, the mining pool immediately switches to a "minimal template" that only contains the Coinbase transaction, which is the miner reward. If the pool gets lucky and finds the next block within this very short window, that block will naturally be empty.
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So yes, pending transactions can absolutely be skipped. Bitcoin's consensus rules do not require miners to include transactions from the mempool into a block. Including transactions is a revenue choice for miners, not a mandatory obligation.
Why Don't Miners Wait Before Mining
Hash power constantly consumes electricity. Stopping for one second wastes one second. When a new block arrives, a mining pool faces a trade-off. It can wait until it has verified transactions and assembled a "full" block template, or it can start mining immediately with an "empty template" while waiting for the complete template to be ready.
The empty block at height 954,352 mined by SpiderPool in June 2026 is a typical example. It appeared only 62 seconds after the previous block. Such a short interval means the pool likely had not finished assembling a new template before its minimal template hit a valid hash. The block contained only the Coinbase transaction and weighed about 1.16 kWU. Bitcoin's block limit is 4,000 kWU, so more than 99% of the space was unused. SpiderPool's historical empty block rate exceeds 5%, and research describes this as a deliberate operational strategy rather than a technical failure.
In other words, miners are not unable to include transactions. At that specific moment, they choose to give up fee income in exchange for an earlier chance to start hashing. In their view, this is more profitable. This trade-off is especially likely when the previous block has just ended and the total fees in the mempool are not particularly high.
There Is No Contradiction Between "Pending Transactions" and "Empty Blocks"
A common misunderstanding is: if there are transactions in the mempool, why don't miners simply grab a few and put them in?
The mempool is only a local cache where nodes store pending transactions. The mempool seen by each mining pool node is not exactly the same. Propagation delays and different relay policies cause differences. When miners build a block template, they need to select transactions from their own mempool, check dependencies, and calculate fee rates. This process takes time. An empty block is exactly the result of skipping this selection process. The miner does not even choose transactions. It simply takes a shell containing only the reward transaction and starts hashing.
Therefore, "pending transactions" describes the state of the network, while "empty block" describes the miner's operational choice at that instant. The two can coexist without logical contradiction. It simply shows that the miner chose speed first.
What Empty Blocks Mean for Regular Users
A transaction that is not included in an empty block does not become invalid. It remains in the mempool of mining pool nodes and other nodes, waiting for the next block. The effect of an empty block is delay, not rejection. If empty blocks appear consecutively, or if they occur frequently during network congestion, confirmation times will be extended. But the transaction itself will not be voided.
From the network's perspective, empty blocks do not violate consensus rules and do not affect the chain's security or final consistency. They consume block space without processing user transactions, which is a form of inefficiency. But miners still contribute valid proof of work. Critics argue that empty blocks waste scarce space that could have been used to confirm transactions. Supporters point out that miners have the right to choose the contents of their blocks. The protocol relies on fee incentives to guide them toward including transactions, not on force.
What deserves attention is not an occasional empty block, but whether a mining pool's empty block rate remains persistently high. SpiderPool's empty block rate above 5% attracted research attention because it reflects a systematic operational preference, not a random timing coincidence. If a pool with a significant share of hash power consistently prioritizes speed over fee income, it can reduce the network's overall transaction processing efficiency during congestion. But this is normal behavior under the incentive structure, not a violation of the rules.
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