The average gap between blocks on a chain, which sets how quickly a transaction can first be included.
Block time is the target interval a network aims for between blocks. Bitcoin targets ten minutes, Ethereum twelve seconds, and many newer chains under one second. The protocol adjusts mining-difficulty or validator scheduling to hold that target as participation changes.
It matters for anyone moving funds between venues. If you are shifting collateral to an exchange to avoid a on-chain-liquidation, a ten-minute block time plus six confirmations is an hour of exposure you cannot shorten by paying more.
Example: at a twelve-second block time, a transaction that needs 32 blocks to be considered settled is final in about six and a half minutes. At a ten-minute block time, six blocks is roughly sixty minutes.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
Risk and reward on one trade. One trade on a price scale: the entry sits 2.00 points above the stop and 6.00 points below the target, so the shaded reward band is three times the risk band. The ratio compares what is lost if the stop is hit with what is gained if the target is reached.
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