An analysis of empty blocks on Bitcoin

Users of Bitcoin have consistently paid out tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of transaction fees to miners on the Bitcoin network. As actors that are driven by incentives, miners should logically aim to maximize the number of transactions included in the blocks they mine to collect those transaction fees. Yet, miners on the Bitcoin network still mine empty blocks.

Empty blocks, while a misnomer, is a term of art used to define a mined block that includes zero transactions other than the coinbase block reward transaction. As such, any blocks with one transaction has generally been accepted as an example of an empty block.