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I was thinking about which bitcoin block has the lowest numbered hash. What I mean by a hash as a number is that. For example, the number "1" has a lower hash than "2" in SHA256. Their values are 6b86b273ff34fce19d6b804eff5a3f5747ada4eaa22f1d49c01e52ddb7875b4b and d4735e3a265e16eee03f59718b9b5d03019c07d8b6c51f90da3a666eec13ab35. Which bitcoin block, as of me asking, has the lowest number?

To be clear, I mean by "lowest number" as the smallest hexadecimal hash. An example of a number would be block #651520 which is numbered 0000000000000000000d1f8cf49fe57d034214693cd7f7678abec20427355c82. Interestingly, the lower the number, the more work tends to be required to generate it.

I kind of like this question because the Bitcoin network is basically an extremely large SHA256 brute force machine. This hash would likely be from after the all time high in 2017 in price.

Mitten File
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As of October 2020, the block with the lowest hash is 000000000000000000000003681c2df35533c9578fb6aace040b0dfe0d446413.

Claris
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    The difficulty and the hash are unrelated (except for the fact that the difficulty is a representation of of the target, and the hash has to be below the target). It's not necessarily the case that the lowest block hash is from a block with the highest difficulty (though it may in practice be the case). – Pieter Wuille Oct 06 '20 at 16:13
  • There's not really a term for working out what difficulty the block "could" have solved, sadly. – Claris Oct 06 '20 at 20:33
  • nor should there be, as it's completely irrelevant. Block hashes commit to their own difficulty, so which difficulties they can beat is fixed. The actual hash only affects whether the block is PoW-valid or not. Talking about this as a "difficulty" makes people think that lower hashes are somehow better - or ought to be better - than larger values that also beat the PoW requirement. – Pieter Wuille Oct 06 '20 at 20:37
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    Right, of course it has zero application to anything at all. – Claris Oct 11 '20 at 09:20
  • Where might I find the current answer, as of 2023? Is there some public-facing web dashboard that tracks this stat? (I'm aware I could look at the blockchain itself, but I'm lazy!) – Retr0id Apr 20 '23 at 09:26