Author: Tier Nolan 2013-07-28 20:07:34
Published on: 2013-07-28T20:07:34+00:00
The email thread discusses the possibility of distributing low proof-of-work (POW) block headers to break ties in the Bitcoin network. The headers would be broadcast approximately once every 9 seconds and are statistically independent hashing attempts. The change would not require miners to have better network connections, but it could impact economics. In most cases, there would only be one contender block, so all miners are equal. Still, orphan measurement and linking to orphans would be useful for a lot of reasons. Adding fields to the header is hard, so it could be done as a coinbase extra-nonce thing or hash(auxiliary header). Broadcasting all headers would allow clients to count orphans and should be a simple change. Headers of blocks that add to the block tree within recent history should be forwarded, and the inv system would need to be tweaked to include a block header field.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T14:28:45.724702+00:00