Author: Mike Hearn 2014-04-23 16:21:56
Published on: 2014-04-23T16:21:56+00:00
It is possible for miners to coordinate and reach a quorum out of band without any changes to the current ruleset. They can do this by signing a nonce with their coinbase keys and eventually begin work on a parallel chain since they have the majority of hashpower behind the decision to orphan a block. Once consensus is reached, other miners should abandon the existing branch and start working on the parallel chain too, as it is guaranteed to win eventually. However, disrupting end users and creating uncertainty during the forging of a new chain are undesirable effects of this scheme. Despite these side effects, the scheme seems like a simple improvement on the current status quo, where miners can do what they could already do but with a more reliable in-band signalling mechanism that doesn't require online coinbase keys and does not disrupt existing users or waste energy.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T20:55:28.539437+00:00