Async function returning promise, instead of value

Question

I'm trying to understand how async/await works in conjunction together with promises.

Code

async function latestTime() {
  const bl = await web3.eth.getBlock('latest');
  console.log(bl.timestamp); // Returns a primitive
  console.log(typeof bl.timestamp.then == 'function'); //Returns false - not a promise
  return bl.timestamp;
}
const time = latestTime(); // Promise { <pending> }

Issue

As far as I understand, await should be blocking and in the code above it seemingly blocks returning an object bl with the primitive timestamp. Then, my function returns the primitive value, however the time variable is set to a pending promise instead of that primitive. What am I missing?

Answer 1

Async prefix is a kind of wrapper for Promises.

async function latestTime() {
    const bl = await web3.eth.getBlock('latest');
    console.log(bl.timestamp); // Returns a primitive
    console.log(typeof bl.timestamp.then == 'function'); //Returns false - not a promise
    return bl.timestamp;
}

Is the same as

function latestTime() {
    return new Promise(function(resolve,success){
        const bl = web3.eth.getBlock('latest');
        bl.then(function(result){
            console.log(result.timestamp); // Returns a primitive
            console.log(typeof result.timestamp.then == 'function'); //Returns false - not a promise
            resolve(result.timestamp)
        })
}