Author: Jonathan Toomim 2017-04-06 02:10:27
Published on: 2017-04-06T02:10:27+00:00
The discussion involves an optimization to find merkle roots with identical rightmost 32 bits. The fastest way to achieve this is by taking the top level of the Merkle tree and collecting left and right branches that can be independently manipulated. However, stratum mining protocol does not provide information about the right side of the merkle tree except for the top-level hash, and it also doesn't allow modifications to the right side of the tree. As a result, implementing this optimization would require a different protocol like getblocktemplate. It is unclear if this optimization is currently being used or how widely it is being adopted. Most consumer-grade hardware defaults to stratum-only operation. Private solo mining farms may have deployed special systems for this optimization, but there is no concrete evidence of it. Gregory Maxwell has suggested a more efficient way to generate candidates by computing a square root number of candidates on both sides of the tree and combining them with a single hashing operation, which could substantially reduce the amount of required operations for this attack.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T23:41:59.665909+00:00