Author: Dave Scotese 2015-12-29 18:59:58
Published on: 2015-12-29T18:59:58+00:00
The proposal to alter the block-selection mechanism has been put forward by Peter Todd in order to reduce the profitability of withholding block solutions. The new mechanism would involve computing BitcoinDaysDestroyed (oBTCDD) using only transactions that have been in the mempool for some time, and using "nearly the same time" to mean separated in time by the average duration of block propagation times. When two block solutions come in at nearly the same time, the one that has the most oBTCDD will be chosen. This change is intended to severely reduce the chances that a block solved a while ago can orphan one solved recently. There are no decent objections to this proposal, as it seems more difficult to game than the current mechanism. The goal of this change is to reduce profitability of mining, which has become problematic due to the increasing prevalence of global nodes willing to help cheat.Peter Todd has acknowledged that there are other factors affecting mining profitability, such as network propagation effects between large and small miners. In environments where selfish mining is possible, the profitability difference between small and large miners is a hugely worrying problem. However, if the blocksize is small enough that propagation time is negligible to profitability, then selfish mining attacks with greater hashing power aren't much of a concern, as they will be naturally defeated by anti-DoS/anti-sybil measures.Ivan Brightly, in response to Todd's proposal, asks why he is focusing on bandwidth/network reliability/stability when there are other factors affecting mining profitability, such as electricity contracts or vertically integrated chip manufacturers. It is unclear whether anyone agrees with Todd's proposal, but he has offered to write a BIP if someone does.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T02:30:12.224370+00:00