user58234: For bitcoin-cli getblock, what's the difference between "time" and "mediantime"?
If i'm looking for a strictly increasing series of timestamps, is one better to choose than the other?

user51948: mediantime is better for your purpose. The timestamp is chosen by the miners, and has some restrictions on it such as it can't be too far in the future/past (no more than 2 hours into the future), but it is not strictly increasing. Mediantime, on the other hand, is. Mediantime is the median time of the past 11 block timestamps, and a block must have a timestamp greater than that median time, so the mediantime always increases. 

58234: <p>For bitcoin-cli getblock, what's the difference between "time" and "mediantime"?</p>

<p>If i'm looking for a strictly increasing series of timestamps, is one better to choose than the other?</p>
 51948: <p>mediantime is better for your purpose. The timestamp is chosen by the miners, and has some restrictions on it such as it can't be too far in the future/past (no more than 2 hours into the future), but it is not strictly increasing. Mediantime, on the other hand, is. Mediantime is the median time of the past 11 block timestamps, and a block <em>must</em> have a timestamp greater than that median time, so the mediantime always increases. </p>
