Author: Hampus Sjöberg 2017-03-24 17:37:25
Published on: 2017-03-24T17:37:25+00:00
In an email conversation on bitcoin-dev mailing list, Nick ODell raised concerns over a proposal to update nodes to ignore empty blocks. He stated that this would make block validity depend on things that aren't in the blockchain and could lead to different mempool sizes for different nodes, causing lack of consensus. Additionally, he pointed out that a miner could create a zero-value transaction with an OP_1 scriptPubKey and another transaction spending the first transaction with an empty scriptSig, and repeat this process until the block is filled up, which can be done deterministically using a precomputed merkle tree. CANNON, another member of the bitcoin-dev list, proposed updating nodes to ignore not only empty blocks but also blocks that are abnormally small compared to the number of valid transactions in mempool. He suggested a threshold for block size and questioned the potential risks and attacks resulting from both having such new rulesets and not doing anything. There was also concern about malicious miners orphaning the chain after many blocks even with non-empty blocks and whether it was possible to mitigate this. The overall discussion revolved around the issue of centralization of mining power and the potential threat posed by a small group of miners controlling a large amount of hash power. The suggestion to ignore empty blocks was seen as a way to prevent DOS attacks on the blockchain, but there were concerns about its impact on consensus and the possibility of other types of attacks.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T22:29:21.005111+00:00