As I understand, the average block time is 16 seconds, and it ranges from 10-30 seconds.
Does that imply that each individual transaction on the current block was sent no longer than 30 seconds ago? (on average, of course)
The relationship between block time and the time I send a transaction
block-intervalpending-transactionstxpool
Best Answer
Block time is the time it took for the block to be mined and added to the blockchain. However, the list of transactions that are included in the block is completely up to the miner. The transaction object itself doesn't contain any timestamp. So the miner can choose to include/exclude any transaction (as long as it's valid and signed properly). This is why transactions include a priority fee, to incentivise miners to include the transaction in a block. The priority fee can be claimed by the miner, if they include it in the block. Sometimes during high network traffic, a published transaction can stay in mempool for hours. So to speed up the transaction, you can reissue it with a higher priority fee, so it gets picked up by a miner.
So to conclude your question, no, we cannot determine when the transaction was published by looking at the block timestamp. All we can say is that it was published before the block was mined, ie. theoretically, it could have been published anytime before it. Hope this clarifies your question.