user101553: By design Bitcoin targets a block interval of 10 minutes. 
How does the blockchain benefit from maintaining a bounded block time?

user101559: Block mining time is not fixed. 10 minutes is just average value which is aimed by difficulty adjustment algorithm to balance two contradicting requirements:

low transaction time requires low block mining time.
low probability to mine several different blocks simultaneously requires higher block mining time.


101553: <p>By design Bitcoin targets a block interval of 10 minutes. </p>

<p>How does the blockchain benefit from maintaining a bounded block time?</p>
 101559: <p>Block mining time <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty#How_soon_might_I_expect_to_generate_a_block.3F" rel="nofollow noreferrer">is not fixed</a>. 10 minutes is just average value which is aimed by <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty" rel="nofollow noreferrer">difficulty adjustment algorithm</a> to balance two contradicting requirements:</p>

<ol>
<li>low transaction time requires low block mining time.</li>
<li>low probability to mine several different blocks simultaneously requires higher block mining time.</li>
</ol>
