Author: Multipool Admin 2015-12-28 19:35:34
Published on: 2015-12-28T19:35:34+00:00
In a discussion between Emin Gün Sirer and Peter Todd via the Bitcoin-dev mailing list, they discussed selfish mining and network propagation effects between large and small miners. They noted that selfish mining is a guaranteed win at 34%, but it is unclear when it begins to pay off. The more decentralized the mining pools, the more likely it is to pay off at lower thresholds. However, network propagation effects between large and small miners are far more concerning. According to them, the profitability difference between small and large miners is a hugely worrying problem in an environment where selfish mining is possible. They also talked about the Bitcoin-NG paper which introduced metrics for fairness, hash power efficiency, as well as consensus delay. Peter Todd mentioned that Eligius is not the only pool to have had problems with block withholding, though Eligius is the only one who has gone on record so far. To this, Emin Gün Sirer disagreed and said that if a pool knows that they have been attacked, then there is every reason to come forward with this information. It offers an explanation for poor profits and if one pool can be attacked, then any pool can be attacked. It is not a reason not to mine on a particular pool, but instead, it is a reason to diversify hashrate among many pools.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T02:32:56.299853+00:00