Author: Matt Corallo 2018-06-05 18:44:57
Published on: 2018-06-05T18:44:57+00:00
The author has been working on a new protocol to replace the existing getblocktemplate and Stratum protocols used in Bitcoin mining pools. The new protocol, which has undergone several rounds of feedback, seeks to achieve three main goals. Firstly, it aims to be more performant and robust for consensus changes, while allowing for better optimization of work switching within Bitcoin Core. Secondly, it seeks to be more secure, simpler to implement, and better-defined than Stratum, with extensibility provided through VENDOR_MESSAGEs. Finally, it provides decentralization pressure by allowing pools to accept work selected by users, thereby removing network-level centralization attacks. The author provides links to the full BIP draft and implementations of the work-generation and pool/proxy parts. While the implementations are currently slightly out-of-date, they have successfully mined numerous testnet blocks on different hardware types. Overall, the author believes that the new protocol could significantly improve decentralization in Bitcoin mining.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T16:59:08.441129+00:00