Block Analyzer

Analyze any block by height or hash: mining pool identification, SegWit/Taproot adoption percentages, fee distribution, weight utilization, and subsidy vs fee breakdown.

Usage

# By height
python block_analyzer.py 939000

# By hash
python block_analyzer.py 0000000000000000000123abc...

What It Shows

• Block metadata: height, hash, timestamp, size, weight, transaction count
• Mining pool identification (parsed from coinbase text)
• Weight utilization (% of 4M WU limit)
• Subsidy vs fees breakdown (the “security budget” split)
• Transaction type distribution: % SegWit, % Taproot
• Fee rate distribution across transactions in the block
• Top 5 highest-fee transactions

How It Works

1. Resolves height to hash via getblockhash if needed
2. Calls getblock(hash, 2) for the full block with decoded transactions
3. Parses the coinbase transaction’s scriptSig for pool identification strings (matches against known pools: Foundry, AntPool, ViaBTC, F2Pool, etc.)
4. Iterates all transactions, classifying inputs/outputs by script type
5. Computes fee rate for each transaction and builds the distribution

Protocol Context

This tool brings Chapter 10 (Mining) to life. The weight utilization shows how close miners get to the 4M weight unit limit from Chapter 3 (SegWit). The subsidy-vs-fees ratio is the “security budget” question discussed in Chapter 12 — as halvings continue, transaction fees must increasingly fund network security.

Pool identification works because miners include their name in the coinbase transaction’s scriptSig field. This is a convention, not a protocol requirement — miners can put anything in the coinbase (Satoshi famously put a newspaper headline in the genesis block, see Chapter 8).