Author: gladoscc 2015-08-28 15:27:01
Published on: 2015-08-28T15:27:01+00:00
The proposal on identifying blockchains for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 21 and other relevant needs has been discussed. The use of the genesis block hash to identify chains in BIP 21 is not sufficient as it does not allow identification between blockchain forks building upon the same genesis block. The proposal suggests identifying blockchains through the genesis block hash for a new chain or a hash of the genesis block hash concatenated with block hash(es) of fork point(s) for a fork chain. This method would allow support for forks, forks of forks, forks of forks of forks, etc while preserving a fixed length chain identifier. In times where multiple chains are coexisting and being actively mined, a user can use this method to specifically identify a chain. If a user wants to specify "whatever chain is the longest with PoW," they would use the genesis block hash for a new chain. It is best to build systems redundantly to avoid issues that may arise from using just the genesis block hash.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T21:10:54.694454+00:00