Author: Eric Lombrozo 2015-07-22 22:09:26
Published on: 2015-07-22T22:09:26+00:00
In an email thread from 2015, Mike Hearn discussed the merging of blockchain forks. He stated that until it is possible to merge these forks like git repo forks, it is safest to avoid them altogether. However, blockchain forks do merge in a similar way to git forks through the reorg algorithm. Transactions that did not make it into the post-reorg chain are placed back into the mempool and miners try to re-include them, which is known as the "merge" process. If there are conflicts with other transactions, they are dropped, resolving merge conflicts.It's important to note that blockchain reorgs are part of the consensus rules and we're discussing forks caused by distinct consensus rules instead of network partitions. Additionally, incompatible transactions cannot be merged without throwing one of them away along with all dependencies. Irreversibility is measured by using confirmation count as a metric. Until one chain wins or all chains include a particular transaction, we cannot consider it irreversible. A model that can reliably measure irreversibility in the presence of multiple chains could be proposed to make a point.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T03:18:35.215627+00:00