Author: Tier Nolan 2014-04-21 11:34:49
Published on: 2014-04-21T11:34:49+00:00
The email thread discusses the security implications of smaller miners mining on top of block headers without including any transactions or doing any validation. While it is unlikely that someone would publish an invalid block, presuming new headers are correct without full block verification within a few minutes of receiving them can harm Bitcoin's security. However, if miners switch to mining empty blocks and broadcast the full block with transactions after a timeout, then less hashing power is wasted while block propagation occurs. Empty blocks have little effect on the average time until one confirmation is obtained and are just as good for providing one of the six confirmations needed. The only time it becomes harmful is when it is used as a DOS attack on the network.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T20:25:06.419535+00:00