Certified Bitcoin Professional Practice Exam

How frequently do Bitcoin miners add new blocks to the blockchain?

1. Every 5 minutes

2. Roughly every 10 minutes

3. Every 15 minutes

4. Every hour

The correct answer is: Roughly every 10 minutes

Bitcoin miners add new blocks to the blockchain roughly every 10 minutes. This time frame is an essential part of Bitcoin's design, established by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. The 10-minute interval is intended to balance the network by providing sufficient time for miners to solve the complex mathematical puzzles required to confirm transactions and create new blocks while also ensuring that blocks are not added too rapidly, which could lead to network congestion and instability. The process of mining and block creation involves competing with other miners to be the first to solve a cryptographic puzzle, a process that requires significant computational resources. When a miner successfully mines a block, it becomes part of the blockchain, a distributed ledger that records all transactions. This block time is also a key aspect of the network's security and integrity, as it helps regulate the issuance of new bitcoins and confirms transactions in a structured manner. While there might be some variance in the actual time it takes to find a new block, the goal is always to maintain an average of about 10 minutes per block. This average can be affected by the total computational power of the network and the adjustments made to the mining difficulty every 2016 blocks, ensuring that new blocks continue to be added at this average pace over time.