Author: Peter Todd 2015-08-22 00:57:49
Published on: 2015-08-22T00:57:49+00:00
In July 2013, a discussion took place in the #bitcoin-wizards channel regarding the issue of nLockTime and time-based locks creating negative incentives for miners. The problem was that blocks created with nTime > actual time incentivized miners to start mining early to include a high-fee nLockTime in their block. Several proposals were put forth, including using the last block's ntime instead of the current one or enforcing nLockTime to require data on what block a transaction was created at and enforcing the 10 min per block rule. However, these solutions were not perfect and had their own drawbacks.One suggestion was timestamping, which could solve the problem by allowing all users to set their clocks to what the majority of hashing power thinks nTime is. However, this created a new problem of an inflation attack and traded off one risk for another more existential one. In conclusion, there was no good incentive to set nTime accurately other than miners rejecting blocks, and nLockTime sabotages that.In a separate conversation about consensus failure, participants discussed the use of "min" as a potential solution. It was agreed that this could work as long as the hashpower was well distributed. The context also includes an email signature and attachment that cannot be further analyzed or contextualized.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T20:15:51.318650+00:00