Author: Tier Nolan 2015-07-12 18:54:38
Published on: 2015-07-12T18:54:38+00:00
In an email conversation between Jorge Timón and an unknown recipient, the topic of mining on top of invalid blocks was discussed. It was suggested that as long as miners switch back to the new longest chain after validating a block, mining on top of a non-most-work-but-surely-valid block may be less risky than mining on top of a most-work-but-potentially-invalid block. However, it was noted that the longer the time passes without the header being fully validated, the more likely it is to be false. This tradeoff is what the timeout takes into account. The risk with SPV mining is that if they successfully mine on top of an invalid block, they not only lose coins but also put regular SPV users at high risk. With a 1 minute timeout, there is only a 10% chance of finding another block. As such, it is crucial to mark headers as "probably invalid" and update all the header's children too. It was also mentioned that while SPV mining requires producing empty blocks, mining on top of the previous block allows including transactions and earning fees. In a future where block rewards aren't dominated by subsidies, the numbers will run against SPV mining. A fee pool has been suggested to keep things as they are now. All fees (mint & tx fees) are paid into a fee pool, and 1% of the total pool fund is paid to the coinbase. This keeps the total payout per block reasonably stable but removes the incentive to include transactions.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T02:20:13.334576+00:00