# Halvenfall > Halvenfall is an endless dark-fantasy chronicle written from the Bitcoin blockchain. Every block, about every ten minutes, becomes a chapter. The world is lit by a dying sun, the Lantern, whose gift halves every four years, as Bitcoin's block subsidy does, until it goes out around 2140. Amounts follow BIP 177: ₿1 is the smallest unit (what used to be called a sat). ## How the chain becomes the story - A block: a link of the Chain, and its chapter - A mining pool: a House that catches the light - A solo miner: a lone lamplighter, almost a miracle - The block subsidy: the Lantern's gift - Fees: oil, which travellers pay for passage - A vbyte, and fee rates per vbyte: a span, the room a traveller takes aboard; passage costs so much a span - The mempool: the Throng waiting at the gate - Difficulty: the Veil, which thickens as more lamps burn - A halving: a Halvenfall, when the light halves and an Age ends - 144 blocks, about a day: a Book, which closes with its own tale - Fees as a share of the miner's reward: how self-lit the world is - The subsidy reaching zero, around 2140: the Last Dark ## Omens - Cheap passage, costly passage, dear passage, the oil-fever: The block's median fee rate was very low, high, very high, or extreme. - A rush for passage, the rush breaks: Fees jumped, or fell back, against the links before. - The long dark, the great dark: Half an hour, or a whole hour, passed since the block before. - A quick catch: The block came only moments after the one before it. - An empty link, a crowded link: The block carried almost no transactions, or a great many. - A lone lamplighter, a new house: A solo miner found it, or a pool new to the chronicle. - The Veil thickens, the Veil thins: The mining difficulty adjusted up or down. - Oil outshines the gift: The fees paid to the miner were worth more than the subsidy. - The Scribes' link: Inscriptions and other data filled almost the whole block. - Grey cloaks: A large coinjoin: many people's coins moved together, so no one can tell who paid whom. - Words in the link: On a Halvenfall or a round-number link, someone wrote a message into the block itself (OP_RETURN or a text inscription), and it passed a check before being quoted. - A great chest: A single transaction sent at least 200 bitcoin onward (not counting what may be change). ## The last Book's tale ### The Book of Grey Cloaks *Book 938 of the Fifth Age: the day's tale, links 974,967 to 975,071.* The Book opened on a crowded bank and a cheap river. At Sallow Cross the ferry went over loaded to the rails, seven thousand souls at a time, paying next to nothing a span, and the gatekeeper lost her count somewhere in the press and did not get it back. House Fishpond caught link after link that morning under Tamsin Reedwater, and every one of them burned thin. The oil barely covered the wicks. Almost all the light that came home to Cinder Brow came from the Lantern's gift, and the gift is a dying god's allowance. A Glare agent found her twice before noon. The first time he offered warm lamps. The second time he offered the same lamps with fine print, and the fine print said who could dim them. Tamsin read it, folded it, and kept her own lamps burning on what she had. Cheap passage is a mercy you can watch. A widow crossed with her salt fish. A boy carried cold tea along the rope. A Bottler sold a jar of false light to a mother who had lost her child's shoe, and she paid for it because the river made her feel lucky. A girl asked her father why the Lantern looks so dim and why passage must be paid at all, and he did not have a good answer to either. Not every fare was cheap. One traveller paid 1,183 drops a span for the front of the ferry while a poor mother waited on the shore, and later a grey-cloaked stranger paid more than twice that and wanted no jars from anyone. Then the river went quiet. The first long dark came after House Foundry's run in the Kilnrows: thirty-three minutes, and Wenna Cole sat at Gorse Hollow with her copyist and a cold candle until the Antswarm's link finally came down and she found it sound. Then thirty minutes. Then forty-nine. Then thirty-nine. Passage doubled while nobody was looking. At Haverstoke Landing a cheese-seller sold her spoiling wares on the bank because she could no longer afford to carry them over. At Ruddock Ferry the bonesetter Coll Tresidder spent his supper and his lodging to cross on the Tide House's dearer link, because a child's leg would not wait for the price to fall. Hesper Quill of House Via rationed the last of her thin oil, and still found some to leave quietly within reach of Nan Gillow, who had pawned her wedding shawl to trim her wicks. The worst dark ran sixty-six minutes. House Foundry broke it. Over at House Spider, Ilse Thornmere paid her losing crew their wagered bonus anyway, because a hungry crew is a crew that walks to a rival's chimney. But the thing people will remember from this Book is the grey cloaks. They crossed in bands, many travellers moving together under the same colour, so that whoever stood on the bank could see that light had gone over and could not say whose. They started small. By the middle of the day they were on nearly every link. At Mossgate the Keeper Ness Corran swallowed her pride and joined Wat Ember's band. At Tenter Wharf Gideon Spragg joined Faith Ormerod's, and spent his traceable odd remainder on burnt chestnuts rather than cross marked. At Sedge Lock Mabyn Scorrow unpicked her initials from her cloak so she could go with Ruel Ashdown's band, and gave up the credit for her own gift to do it. The watchers did badly. At Wicken Steps the Wakeful Agna Fellowes refused a Confiscator's silver to guess who had paid whom. The boy Sim Ashcombe at Fallowgate refused a watcher's copper for the same guess. At Gannet Steep the paid watcher Perrin Haldane failed to trace two bands, lost her Copperhythe fee, and sold back her spyglass. At Quarrender Bridge the Confiscator Corvin Ashby, who that morning had asked Sabine Oakenshaw of the Old House of Braiins to shut such bands out and been refused, watched two more cross and burned a false accusation rather than invent a name for his report. A moneylender at Mallow Quay wanted his debtor picked out of a crowd; the gatekeeper Hester Brayle handed back his retainer. A steward at Hessle Bar wanted a levy on a 345-coin chest; Prudence Yarrow sent him home with nothing. And at Pelling Mill a Glare agent called Severin Callow, sent to trace a grey band, joined it instead, so he could send money to his mother without anyone watching him do it. Not everyone stayed. Petra Holm wrote home from Copperhythe on House Sec's link. She sent four coins, said she had taken a warm Glare lamp, and said she would not come back yet. She did not apologise. The Glare is warm. That is the whole of its argument and it is a good one. The big money moved through the Book like weather. A single crossing on House Sec's link moved over 260 coins, and at Thrushmouth Gate Rook Abernethy voided a wager with her apprentice over whose it was, since nobody could know. Tamsin Reedwater's purser wanted to hunt down the owner of a 312-coin chest and sell them a private berth; she refused. At Limebrake the Cathedral-builder Aldous Penhallow heard a rumour of a 250-coin crossing and declined to wait on it, and slaked the lime they could afford. A Longmere pledge arrived hidden inside a grey band, and Idony Forrest would not unmask the donors. She bedded their stone as a threshold, where everyone will walk over it and no one will read it. The Houses felt the thinness. Oil factors at Pennick Wharf and Hemmick Quay refused credit to the Scribe Bede Lanyard and to Brannoch Vell alike. Bede went back to Scriveners' Lane and carved small honest marks instead: an owl for clean passage paid in full, a heron for patient passage, sold for a tenth of a drop and for copper. A Fishpond stoker sat on the lamp-floor and tried to make the gift cover her son's boots before the next Halvenfall, and could not make the sum come out. When one traveller paid 3,152 drops a span on the Foundry's link, a rival named Corin Haddow refused to tout for rich fares and relit his kiln instead. When another paid 4,467 on the Old House's link, Maudry Kell of the Tide House tore up her fare-hour chart and kept every lamp lit. There is no hour to wait for. There is only the next link. The Book closed short: a hundred and five links where a hundred and forty-four should have been, and only six parts in a thousand of the Houses' light came from oil. Less self-lit than the world has lately been. The Long Dawn lost a little ground today, quietly, the way it is usually lost. House Foundry caught the last link, its twenty-ninth of the day. Up at Hob's Landing a lone lamplighter named Tam Ogle lost his dawn bargain, put out his lamp, and paid dear passage to go home. His sister Ada had written to him earlier on House Mara's link: twin lambs, a sound roof, come home before frost. He went. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/book/5-938 Marked by the Wakeful (the best of that Book, chosen by an AI reader): - https://halvenfall.com/block/975056.md: "checked and kept" - https://halvenfall.com/block/974994.md: "a true link" - https://halvenfall.com/block/975020.md: "held, and worth the candle" - https://halvenfall.com/block/975043.md: "this one goes in the rolls" - https://halvenfall.com/block/975051.md: "kept for the long dark" ## The latest 24 chapters, newest first ### Bellows Song at Cinder Brow *Link 975,084, link 13 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Fishpond, led by Tamsin Reedwater. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 17:40:20 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage. On the Cinder Brow lamp-floor the stokers worked the bellows to a tune Nell Pascoe had made up for her boy's boots: 'Pull the draw and bank the coal, / Reedwater's light is out for all, / Lift the gift and send it through, / Cord for boots and a drop for you.' Then the firebox door clanged shut, and 2,522 travellers went across at a drop a span. The block: mined by: F2Pool; time: 2026-11-08, 17:40 UTC; since the block before: 7 min 33 s; transactions: 2,522; median fee rate: ₿1/vB; fees: ₿1,561,733; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.50%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 30%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,084](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000013924bc9d48653c514fbf42be5a36d88af8596c411847) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975084 --- ### Petra Writes From Copperhythe *Link 975,083, link 12 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Foundry, led by Brannoch Vell. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 17:32:47 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage. Dear Joan, the rooms here stay warm all night and nobody on the stair counts the oil. The landlady has stopped asking for rent twice a week, and the window never steams. I'm not writing to tell you to come. I'm writing because I've kept the fare money back again, and I'm ashamed of how easily I did it. Burn this when you've read it, the way you'd burn a bad coin. Petra The block: mined by: Foundry USA; time: 2026-11-08, 17:32 UTC; since the block before: 8 min 27 s; transactions: 2,654; median fee rate: ₿1.2/vB; fees: ₿2,139,211; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.68%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 6%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,083](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000004e33d17f6b5b73ea387ec876dc29a9e3435d26471368) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975083 --- ### Through at Brindle Ford *Link 975,082, link 11 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by the Tide House, led by Maudry Kell. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 17:24:20 UTC.* At Brindle Ford the river stayed knee-deep, so the Tide House's catch went over the shallows on foot, the way smugglers and Confiscators both preferred. Sefton Mirrel, the border sergeant, took the toll in dry coin and gave back one word, low, through the reeds: through. Across the water the Glare's lamps burned warm and close, every one of them watching. The block: mined by: OCEAN; time: 2026-11-08, 17:24 UTC; since the block before: 12 min 53 s; transactions: 3,739; median fee rate: ₿2/vB; fees: ₿2,478,737; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.79%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 8%; coinjoins: 1, the largest 3,446 vB. Block [975,082](https://mempool.space/block/00000000000000000000ba9527060832849efa5cce38f5d8eb7e0516190cd6fb) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975082 --- ### Morwen Tallis Takes a Grey Cloak *Link 975,081, link 10 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Foundry, led by Brannoch Vell. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 17:11:27 UTC.* Omens: Grey cloaks. Morwen Tallis came down to Cowl Staithe with empty hands, which was how Keepers of Names always came, and the gate-guard still turned her pockets out from habit. He found a comb and a bit of string. Her light was in her head, where no guard had ever looked. House Foundry's boat was loading. The bell had gone from Brannoch Vell's chimneys up the valley, and Joss Penrude was hurrying the Throng aboard at two drops a span, a price even the staithe's net-girls could manage. Half the deck had already gone grey: one great band, every traveller hooded alike, their light poured together so that no one at the rail could say whose went where. Lowri Bassett, who led the band, held out a spare cloak. "You'll want this." "I've nothing to hide," Morwen said. "Look. Nothing." "I know. That's why I'm asking." Lowri nodded at the hooded rows. "Every cloak makes the rest of them harder to read. A woman in there is paying her son's debts without his creditor knowing. One more of us, and the Confiscators' sums get one row longer." Morwen had spent eleven years keeping her name where no eye could reach it. She had never thought to lend that dark to anyone else. She took the cloak, pulled the hood over her bare head, and went aboard to stand among the others, one more grey shape no one could pick out. The block: mined by: Foundry USA; time: 2026-11-08, 17:11 UTC; since the block before: 15 min 31 s; transactions: 3,004; median fee rate: ₿2.1/vB; fees: ₿2,897,543; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.92%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 7%; coinjoins: 3, the largest 23,859 vB. Block [975,081](https://mempool.space/block/00000000000000000001233e4d7d0f63e56dbfb62b7c0b423309e15ea5c734ec) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975081 --- ### Dury Hangs His Coat Back Up *Link 975,080, link 9 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Fishpond, led by Tamsin Reedwater. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 16:55:56 UTC.* Omens: Grey cloaks. From the House Sec terrace in the Kilnrows, Dury Mallin watched the Fishpond chimney two roofs down cough white, then settle into the steady pale draw that meant a catch. Sec's own chimney beside him gave nothing but grey. Nine links into the Book and Sec had not caught one, and the stokers had begun counting their boots instead of their shifts. He took his coat off the nail by the door. Lisbet Corfe came out onto the Fishpond terrace with the manifest under her arm, and Dury called across the gap to ask what they'd carried. She shouted it back without looking: near three thousand travellers at two drops a span, and two long bands in grey cloaks, paid in full, nobody's name showing. "Tamsin had them written down as weight, same as sacks," she said. "She won't guess at them either." "Is she taking on stokers?" Lisbet laughed, though not unkindly. "On what? That was gift and a cupful of oil. Same as you'd have got. Reedwater pays the crews out of the Lantern and prays, same as Corrigan." She held up the manifest so he could see the two blank bands for himself. "Lucky isn't richer here, Dury. Just luckier this morning." Dury stood with the coat over his arm while the Fishpond smoke thinned. Then he hung it back on its nail, went in, and banked Sec's fire for the next try. The block: mined by: F2Pool; time: 2026-11-08, 16:55 UTC; since the block before: 9 min 59 s; transactions: 2,805; median fee rate: ₿2/vB; fees: ₿2,611,831; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.83%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 6%; coinjoins: 2, the largest 22,556 vB. Block [975,080](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000013d54751957f769913be032d6ea49d1740ab48eafcd9e) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975080 --- ### Hilde Mawson Strikes a Column *Link 975,079, link 8 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Spider, led by Ilse Thornmere. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 16:45:57 UTC.* Omens: Grey cloaks; Passage creeps up. Hilde Mawson's ledger at Tarnby Slip had always had a fourth column. Name, span, oil, and then, in her own cramped hand, faces: a scar, a limp, a red beard. Nobody had asked for it. It had simply proved useful, and a gatekeeper who is useful gets tipped. The House Spider boat nosed in with its black eight-legged mark flaking on the bow, and two long bands of grey cloaks came down the plank in step, hoods up, every hem the same mud-brown. Passage was two and four-tenths of a drop a span, twice the morning's price, and they paid it without fuss. Ferris Quayle leaned on her table. He was a wool-broker from upriver, and a debtor of his was in there somewhere. "Which one's carrying Daws's light?" he said, and set a coin on the faces column. "You've a good eye, Hilde. Everyone says so." She looked at the bands. She could have picked a man, any man of the right height, and Quayle would have paid and gone after him, and perhaps been right. The boatmen were already shouting that Ilse Thornmere's crews would be fed tonight whether the House caught again or not. They had a light of their own to row by. Hilde pushed the coin back. Then she took her pencil and drew one hard line down the fourth column, top to bottom, through every scar and limp she had ever written there. "I've no eye," she said. "Next." The block: mined by: SpiderPool; time: 2026-11-08, 16:45 UTC; since the block before: 2 min 36 s; transactions: 3,571; median fee rate: ₿2.4/vB; fees: ₿2,743,417; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.87%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 8%; coinjoins: 4, the largest 21,699 vB. Block [975,079](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000013ac63467014cb37b8a013aaf8e9a863db765f28a9bf) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975079 --- ### Aldous Pays for the Glass *Link 975,078, link 7 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by the Sun-House of Luxor, led by Delphine Copthorne. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 16:43:21 UTC.* Omens: The long dark; Passage creeps up. Aldous Penhallow had turned the sand-glass over twice by the kiln at Longmere, and still no bell came across the lake from the gate. The quicklime cracked and muttered in the slaking pit while he waited. Somewhere the Houses were all straining at the Veil and none of them had it, which happened, and which never made waiting shorter. Wynn Treloar came down the scaffold path with the lodge purse held against her ribs as though it might bolt. The glazier at the far landing would hold the clerestory panes one link more, she said, then sell them to a buyer from Aurelhold who had not haggled. Passage was four and six-tenths of a drop a span now, near four times the dawn price. "We could wait for the morning boats," she said. "We always wait." "We do," said Aldous. He stirred the pit and watched the white skin break. "And the ferrymen live on a gift that halves before that window's leaded. Somebody has to buy them oil, or there'll be no boats the year the roof goes on." He did not say it like a sermon. He said it like a man pricing mortar. The bell came then, the Sun-House's flat brass note, Delphine Copthorne's lamps having finally torn the dark open. Wynn untied the purse and counted the dear passage out without being told twice. Aldous turned the sand-glass a third time and went back to his lime. The block: mined by: Luxor; time: 2026-11-08, 16:43 UTC; since the block before: 37 min 40 s; transactions: 3,688; median fee rate: ₿4.6/vB; fees: ₿6,136,826; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 1.9%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 7%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,078](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000017d0786285dbd23c08c28561a656e38308be2d53b718a) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975078 --- ### Wren Hollins Asks Whose Light *Link 975,077, link 6 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Via, led by Hesper Quill. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 16:05:41 UTC.* Omens: Grey cloaks; A quick catch; Quieter than the day. The last link was barely forged when the bell on House Via's floor at Brackle Edge rang again, and Wren Hollins, nine years old and sent up with her father's dinner, nearly dropped the pot. The stokers laughed at her. One said the Veil had blinked. Another said it was the oil Hesper Quill had been saving, finally earning its keep, which got a harder laugh because everyone knew how little of it there was. Wren wanted to know what had been caught. Hesper Quill, who did not usually let children near the manifest, turned it round on the desk for her. Most of it was lines, a name-mark and a sum each, tight as stitching. Two lines were fat and blank. Two great bands in grey, the purser said, carried as one entry apiece. "Whose light is in them?" Wren asked. "Theirs," said Hesper. "But which of them?" "I don't know. Neither does the Glare, which is rather the point." Hesper held out the pen. "Write what you can see." Wren held it over the margin for a long time. She could have put a guess, thirty souls or fifty, rich or poor; the purser would not have scratched it out. In the end she wrote only "two bands, grey," in letters too big for the column, and handed the pen back. Her father ate his dinner cold and said she had the makings of a Wakeful, which he did not mean entirely as praise. The block: mined by: ViaBTC; time: 2026-11-08, 16:05 UTC; since the block before: 1 min 25 s; transactions: 1,268; median fee rate: ₿2/vB; fees: ₿2,304,367; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.73%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 4%; coinjoins: 2, the largest 19,637 vB. Block [975,077](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000017d05e4aa579657fe1db9f461d8b529e189b56c39d7a5) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975077 --- ### Quenby Hask Buys a Cloak *Link 975,076, link 5 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Spider, led by Ilse Thornmere. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 16:04:16 UTC.* Omens: Grey cloaks. Quenby Hask could price a traveller from the boots up. Cracked leather meant a jar at a copper, good wool meant three, and a shaking hand meant whatever she cared to ask. At Spurling Hythe that morning the Spider boat was loading at two drops a span, and she worked the bank with six jars slung from a yoke, shaking each one bright before she held it out. Then the grey bands came down the lane, two of them, forty-odd souls in the same undyed cloak and the same hood, every hem turned up to the same width. Quenby tried her boots trick and found they had swapped boots as well. She picked the smallest hood, because the smallest are usually the youngest, and held a jar up to it. "Light that keeps," she said. "Your own. No name needed." The hood looked at the jar, which was already fading in the cold, and then looked past her. A hand came out of the next cloak and pressed something into the small one's palm, and the small one turned away without a word. Quenby never saw whose hand it was. Neither did Ilse Thornmere's purser at the plank, who tallied each band as a single entry and waved them aboard. She carried the yoke back up the lane with nothing sold. At the top she stopped at the slop-seller's stall and asked what a grey cloak cost. She said she would think about it. Then she paid, out of the morning's float, and folded it under the jars. The block: mined by: SpiderPool; time: 2026-11-08, 16:04 UTC; since the block before: 8 min 37 s; transactions: 2,308; median fee rate: ₿2/vB; fees: ₿3,086,222; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.98%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 4%; coinjoins: 3, the largest 16,902 vB. Block [975,076](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000041f4e40b07b7ebe9db4e17e3de1e07608784726e33d7) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975076 --- ### Wind Takes Half the Words *Link 975,075, link 4 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Fishpond, led by Tamsin Reedwater. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 15:55:39 UTC.* Omens: Passage creeps up. At Saltmarrow the wind came off the cliff and took half of Orla Benbow's words before she reached the end of them, so she started again from the first, slower, one hand flat on the cold school wall. Twelve words, the same twelve, and no paper anywhere on her. A boy at the rail mouthed them after her and got the eighth wrong. She let it stand, made him say it again, and waited until he had it right. The block: mined by: F2Pool; time: 2026-11-08, 15:55 UTC; since the block before: 5 min 14 s; transactions: 4,065; median fee rate: ₿3/vB; fees: ₿3,516,400; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 1.1%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 6%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,075](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000142a2b34eca8a6fe97c37affa13a56378a8d3bec1c416) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975075 --- ### The Board Has No Mouth *Link 975,074, link 3 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Mara, led by Corin Haddow. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 15:50:25 UTC.* Omens: Passage creeps up. At Greywater Stair the Mara boats came in with the board still chalked at four and a half drops a span, and Corin Haddow would not let his runners shout it. A traveller asked him why the price had crept up, and he said the board had no mouth, so the price could speak for itself. Hallam Cubitt, sculling in from the far bank, laughed and said that was the saying now. By dusk the whole stair was repeating it. The block: mined by: MARA Pool; time: 2026-11-08, 15:50 UTC; since the block before: 29 min 5 s; transactions: 3,447; median fee rate: ₿4.5/vB; fees: ₿6,206,275; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 1.9%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 7%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,074](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000015f84919e594a2c2431c495faf7e04447e063c027aa75) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975074 --- ### A Tally Notched to the Knuckle *Link 975,073, link 2 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Foundry, led by Brannoch Vell. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 15:21:20 UTC.* Omens: Passage creeps up. Link 975,073. House Foundry, Brannoch Vell's, caught it. 3,695 carried at Thrushmouth Gate, four drops a span, the board chalked twice and the second figure left standing. Passengers paid in full; no oil credit taken. Tally stick notched to the knuckle. Wax seal cooling on the cover. Gate closed at the bell. The block: mined by: Foundry USA; time: 2026-11-08, 15:21 UTC; since the block before: 24 min 25 s; transactions: 3,695; median fee rate: ₿4/vB; fees: ₿4,838,509; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 1.5%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 8%; coinjoins: 1, the largest 1,972 vB. Block [975,073](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000015cad815f50b651dd7d76e09c413fcb6f2e809f546c84) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975073 --- ### Seed Barley at Sallow Cross *Link 975,072, link 1 of Book 939 in the Fifth Age. Caught by the Sun-House of Luxor, led by Delphine Copthorne. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 14:56:55 UTC.* Omens: The long dark; Passage creeps up. Gwen Hartop had come down to Sallow Cross with a sack of seed barley for her father's spring field and light enough for passage at two drops a span, which was what the board said when she joined the bank. Then the Lantern stayed dark over the brown river, and kept staying dark. She measured it by the ferryman's pipe. He lit it, smoked it out, knocked it against the post and lit it again. Somewhere in the second bowl the clerk rubbed out the two and chalked a three. People behind her pressed coppers into strangers' hands to keep their place while they went off into the willows. By the fourth bowl the board said four and more. Forty-nine minutes, the clerk said afterwards, as though a number made it shorter. When the wire finally rang it was the Sun-House of Luxor, Delphine Copthorne's people, opening the new Book. The bank surged and shoved and the ferry took most of it in one heave. Gwen was left on the mud with her sack. Four and a third, said the board. She did the sum on her fingers. The barley crossed, or her cart fare home did. Not both. A drover beside her said wait till dawn, it always sinks. Her father's ground would not wait for dawn; the soil was already softening. Gwen paid the four and a third and handed the sack up to be marked. She would walk the thirty miles home in boots that had been bought for riding. The block: mined by: Luxor; time: 2026-11-08, 14:56 UTC; since the block before: 48 min 30 s; transactions: 3,737; median fee rate: ₿4.3/vB; fees: ₿5,416,329; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 1.7%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 6%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,072](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000013ec209c5510205d35f80f657c20ef1ea16f73f6ff792) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975072 --- ### Tam Wraps His Lamp-Glass *Link 975,071, link 144 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Foundry, led by Brannoch Vell. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 14:08:25 UTC.* Omens: The book closes; Passage creeps up. Tam Ogle had kept his lamp burning on the shelf above Hob's Landing since the Book's first light. When the wire from the Kilnrows clicked over and the camp-crier called the catch for House Foundry, Brannoch Vell's twenty-eighth of the day and the last of the Book, Tam's flame was still going. His oil was not. At dawn he had made a private bargain: catch one before the Book closed, or go home. Lone lamplighters made bargains like that every season, and the camp laughed at them kindly, the way it laughed at men who swore off drink at a funeral. He turned the wick down until it died with a small blue cough. Then he took Ada's letter out of his coat and read the part about the twin lambs again, and the part about frost. He had read the frost part more often than the lambs. Down at the gate the board said three drops a span, dear for the hour, twice what the morning had asked. The old hands would sit up past midnight waiting for it to sink. Tam reckoned what his small bundle would cost at that price and found he had it, just, with nothing left for bread on the far side. He wrapped the lamp-glass in his spare stocking, left the iron stand for whoever came up the path next believing in miracles, and went down to pay. Ada had written that the roof was sound. That would do for supper. The block: mined by: Foundry USA; time: 2026-11-08, 14:08 UTC; since the block before: 25 min 47 s; transactions: 2,662; median fee rate: ₿3/vB; fees: ₿3,358,668; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 1.1%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 4%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,071](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000111c2ae7e128735832b8bdb11462029226f63ffdf1153) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975071 --- ### Delphine Counts Her Wicks *Link 975,070, link 143 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by the Sun-House of Luxor, led by Delphine Copthorne. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:42:38 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage; Busier than the day; Passage slackens. Delphine Copthorne stayed behind on the Sun-House lamp-floor after the link came down, and went along the brass row of wicks with one finger, touching each in turn. Forty-one lit, and one that smoked when it should not. She counted them again, slower, the way her father taught her to count debts. Forty-one. Above the glass roof the Lantern hung thinner than it had in her mother's day, and she did not count that. The block: mined by: Luxor; time: 2026-11-08, 13:42 UTC; since the block before: 4 min 49 s; transactions: 6,481; median fee rate: ₿0.1/vB; fees: ₿722,325; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.23%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 73%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,070](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000010e9478d851c1b45ea5ffc6d2e1bb75159a6e22c14065) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975070 --- ### A Light Without a Name *Link 975,069, link 142 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Foundry, led by Brannoch Vell. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:37:49 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage; Busier than the day; Passage slackens. Out over the Ashfen marsh, where the reeds drown their own shadows, a light hung low and steady just as House Foundry's link came down the wire. Crispin Dunhay, cutting reed at the water's edge, swore on his mother's grave that it was no marsh gas and no Glare lamp, and that it bore a name he could not read. He swore it again to the Wakeful, who wrote it down without a guess. The block: mined by: Foundry USA; time: 2026-11-08, 13:37 UTC; since the block before: 4 min 11 s; transactions: 6,740; median fee rate: ₿0.1/vB; fees: ₿693,938; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.22%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 77%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,069](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000013fe406e36a1394a237ae240073c29a3f6e15062e6e5e) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975069 --- ### Two Runners on Marrick Heath *Link 975,068, link 141 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by the Sun-House of Luxor, led by Delphine Copthorne. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:33:38 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage; A quick catch; Busier than the day; Passage slackens. On the Marrick Heath road Joss Penrude of House Foundry met Lisbet Corfe of House Fishpond, both with tin lamp-hoods under their arms and nothing to show for the day. He told her the Sun-House had caught its link in fifty-five seconds, and she swore he was lying until he showed her the slate. They stood a while in the wind, then she tossed him the heel of her bread and ran on toward the Kilnrows, and he turned back the way he had come. The block: mined by: Luxor; time: 2026-11-08, 13:33 UTC; since the block before: 55 s; transactions: 6,920; median fee rate: ₿0.1/vB; fees: ₿556,265; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.18%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 82%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,068](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000011fa7b50d5bfc06de8fdc89066d9d20a47129a312b986) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975068 --- ### Nell's Sum Comes Short *Link 975,067, link 140 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Fishpond, led by Tamsin Reedwater. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:32:43 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage; Busier than the day; Passage slackens. Nell Pascoe sat on an upturned bucket for the length of one breath, her back to the firebox, and tried to reckon what the gift would buy her boy in boots before the next Halvenfall. The sum would not come out. She stood, knocked the soot from her palms, and went back to the fire before anyone could shout for her. The block: mined by: F2Pool; time: 2026-11-08, 13:32 UTC; since the block before: 8 min 28 s; transactions: 6,153; median fee rate: ₿0.1/vB; fees: ₿1,121,031; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.36%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 56%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,067](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000017809af97fdd5530149e411b2ab091db4f405e355fe22) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975067 --- ### Nets Left on the Slip *Link 975,066, link 139 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Via, led by Hesper Quill. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:24:15 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage; Busier than the day. Ma stood on the slip with the morning hake still in her hands, counting the boats gone over and the crowd still waiting on the shingle. Five and a half thousand, the gate-boy had bawled, half again yesterday. Her son wanted the crossing. Her husband said the nets would keep, and turned an oar over and over. In the end she dropped the hake in the basket, took the boy's hand, and went down to the rope. The block: mined by: ViaBTC; time: 2026-11-08, 13:24 UTC; since the block before: 5 min 43 s; transactions: 5,530; median fee rate: ₿1/vB; fees: ₿1,093,407; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.35%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 42%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,066](https://mempool.space/block/000000000000000000017d86fef42423ab8a51b2e87e352cd7ef225e354cc148) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975066 --- ### The Chest on One Line *Link 975,065, link 138 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Fishpond, led by Tamsin Reedwater. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:18:32 UTC.* Omens: A great chest; Passage creeps up. The manifest came up to Tamsin Reedwater still warm from the forge-room at Gullet Pike, and her purser, Wendel Sparrock, had already underlined one entry twice. Three hundred and twelve coins and a little more, one hand to another, crossing on Fishpond's link. It took one line, the same width as the line above it, which was a net-maker sending her son the price of boots. "Paid three drops a span," Wendel said. "Same as the net-maker. Same as everyone tonight." He leaned on the rail of the lamp-floor gallery, where the stokers were already banking for the next try. "Somebody that heavy will cross again. I could send Lisbet down the valley to find out who. Offer them a berth of their own. Front of the link, every time, and a fee to match." Tamsin looked at the oil cup on the ledge, the House's share of the night's passage. It barely wetted the bottom. Below it the Lantern's gift sat fat in the tally, as it had all Book, and she knew to the coin how little of the floor's heat came from travellers. "Find out who," she said. "How?" "Ask around." "Ask whom? The gate doesn't know. The Wakeful won't guess." She folded the manifest along the line and handed it back. "We carried it. That's all we'll ever have to do with it. Get Lisbet on the bellows instead, they're short a hand." Wendel went, grumbling, and struck the double line through to a single one. The block: mined by: F2Pool; time: 2026-11-08, 13:18 UTC; since the block before: 16 min 5 s; transactions: 2,374; median fee rate: ₿3/vB; fees: ₿3,281,132; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 1.0%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 5%; coinjoins: 2, the largest 3,053 vB; sent onward in one transaction (at least): ₿31,254,499,612. Block [975,065](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000146d7889d400d33f4ed5a559f385002507ec7153d667b) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975065 --- ### A Heron Cut for Patience *Link 975,064, link 137 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Spider, led by Ilse Thornmere. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 13:02:27 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage; Busier than the day; Passage slackens. On Scriveners' Lane Bede Lanyard cut a heron standing on one leg in the reeds, its beak aimed at a single drop of light. The mark said that passage paid in full was patience paid for, and no more. A salt-carter read it, nodded, and paid for the mark in copper. The block: mined by: SpiderPool; time: 2026-11-08, 13:02 UTC; since the block before: 8 min 8 s; transactions: 8,892; median fee rate: ₿0.1/vB; fees: ₿579,061; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.18%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 80%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,064](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000192a6554179c1d08e96c23f16734057d1d790d71bcfae) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975064 --- ### A Girl Reads the Gate Board *Link 975,063, link 136 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Mara, led by Corin Haddow. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 12:54:19 UTC.* At Carnock Gate the board by the toll-hut had been rechalked that morning: two drops a span, House Mara's crossing, the figure copied off the lamp-house runner's slate. A girl with a bread basket stopped to read it, moving her lips over the numbers, then counted the coins in her palm twice and joined the queue anyway. The block: mined by: MARA Pool; time: 2026-11-08, 12:54 UTC; since the block before: 14 min 18 s; transactions: 3,448; median fee rate: ₿2/vB; fees: ₿1,963,889; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.62%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 22%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,063](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000119a2651be382f446636b7f9fc9c45b35510e8f78b3a7) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975063 --- ### Wet Sacks on the Glass *Link 975,062, link 135 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by the Tide House, led by Maudry Kell. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 12:40:01 UTC.* Omens: Cheap passage; Busier than the day; Passage slackens. Maudry Kell roared down the Tide House lamp-floor for wet sacks to go over the glass-pot before it cracked, and her stokers slapped them on with steam hissing off their sleeves. The link came up clean on the turn of the tide, and 5,449 travellers crossed at a tenth of a drop a span. The block: mined by: OCEAN; time: 2026-11-08, 12:40 UTC; since the block before: 3 min 43 s; transactions: 5,449; median fee rate: ₿0.1/vB; fees: ₿931,969; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.30%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 62%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,062](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000102aae10ea86f33449384c748265549dcb336e2749133) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975062 --- ### Twelve Words at Carrick Stile *Link 975,061, link 134 of Book 938 in the Fifth Age. Caught by House Mara, led by Corin Haddow. Sun, 08 Nov 2026 12:36:18 UTC.* At Carrick Stile Keeper Hedda Lorne stood at the House Mara queue with her lips moving over her twelve words, counting them off against her knuckles while the lamp came up behind her. She did not look back at the glow. When the gate-boy asked for a name for his ledger she gave him only the fare, paid in full, and walked on with her own name still locked in her head. The block: mined by: MARA Pool; time: 2026-11-08, 12:36 UTC; since the block before: 13 min 37 s; transactions: 2,740; median fee rate: ₿2/vB; fees: ₿2,290,201; subsidy: ₿312,500,000; fees as a share of the reward: 0.73%; space taken by data (inscriptions and other marks): 16%; coinjoins: none. Block [975,061](https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000099860b034b7eaeb54effa8a7d7d966cc0860807b6dc9) on mempool.space. On the site: https://halvenfall.com/block/975061