Author: Billy Tetrud 2022-12-30 18:20:47
Published on: 2022-12-30T18:20:47+00:00
The discussion on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list is about finding a solution that would ensure that a sudden drop in mining difficulty does not cause a catastrophic miner exodus. Some participants suggest a mechanism based on downward differences to calculate the "difference" and delay or end halving, but others argue that such a scheme may not be sufficient. They point out that there is no long-term relation between difficulty and any reasonable security target, and it becomes less predictable the longer you look ahead. To keep the system secure, one would have to program assumptions about the cost of hashrate projected into the future.As a more elegant solution, some propose using a chainwork parameter instead and comparing the chainwork difference between the beginning and end of the last 210,000 block interval with that of previous inter-halving intervals. However, others argue that achieving equilibrium regarding costs of security between two parties with opposing interests is a missing mechanism in the current system. They propose a robust model that calculates the average difficulty of the last 100 retargets every 210,000 blocks and compares it with the maximum of all previous average diffs. If the average diff of the last 100 retargets is higher than the maximum of all previous average diffs, halving happens; otherwise, nothing happens. While there is no consensus on which approach is best, some suggest implementing changes periodically, every 10-30 years, in a fork of some kind (soft or hard) to keep the system secure. The proposed approach considers the cost in Bitcoin of the security target and the cost in Bitcoin of acquiring a unit of hashrate to calculate the necessary difficulty level to attract more or fewer miners. The system could automatically adjust the subsidy up or down or adjust the block size to change the fee market and attract more or fewer miners.
Updated on: 2023-06-16T03:38:47.075787+00:00