Published on: 2015-12-06T06:26:15+00:00
In December 2015, an email chain discussed concerns about cgminer and its inability to allow a pool to revert to mining on the previous block due to chain tracking issues. The discussion proposed a potential use for a flag that would enable non-monotone mining for non-verified blocks. The email suggested adding a recommendation for this use to the draft.Another discussion focused on how SPV clients should be informed about fully validated headers without penalizing the blocks too much. It was agreed that only fully validated headers should be shared with SPV clients, but the balance between penalizing blocks and incentivizing the proposed solution was emphasized. The importance of establishing connections to multiple nodes and avoiding surprises from unverified blocks was also highlighted.The email thread also touched upon the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) to mitigate the 'accidental selfish mining' problem. It was suggested to include a write-up explaining the problem and how the proposed solution addresses it in the BIP. Using bit 0 instead of bit 30 in the versionbits BIP and BIP101 was recommended to avoid confusion. The discussion also mentioned that SPV clients should only be informed about fully validated headers. Further deliberations on the matter were planned for the future.The propagation of new information in gossip networks was discussed, emphasizing the need to relay all information to peers promptly. The difference between a block and its header was explained, and the suggestion of including an indicator in the header to signal whether the miner has validated the chain was made. However, it was noted that accepting such proof could lead to ignoring important blocks. The potential problems with one node choosing not to validate for reduced latency were also considered.The Bitcoin community discussed the potential benefits of a Blockchain verification flag used by miners to signal complete validation of their block and preceding blocks. This was proposed as a solution to miners not verifying blocks for economic reasons, which can harm the system. However, correct use of this signaling is not enforced internally, and there are concerns about misuse and false signaling. It was recommended that non-full-node wallets refrain from counting confirmations on blocks where the flag is not set.The BIP draft-maxwell-flagverify proposed a flag for block authors to signal complete validation. The use of this flag could turn harmful validation skipping by miners into behavior beneficial to the public. However, the accuracy of the flag cannot be strongly relied upon, as miners can stop using it at any time. The motivation behind this proposal was to address vulnerabilities in thin-client wallets and improve the security of Bitcoin in the long term.Overall, the discussions focused on improving the validation process, addressing the 'accidental selfish mining' problem, and ensuring SPV clients receive accurate information while avoiding penalizing blocks excessively.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T16:59:30.753039+00:00