Author: Peter R 2017-03-26 19:05:38
Published on: 2017-03-26T19:05:38+00:00
The impending network upgrade to larger blocks in Bitcoin has raised concerns regarding blockchain splits, confusion, and replay risks. Two proposed techniques have been suggested to reduce the chances of a split: orphaning the blocks of non-upgraded miners once a super-majority of the network hash power has upgraded, and continually re-organizing any minority branch that emerges with empty blocks to prevent transactions from confirming, thereby eliminating replay risk. Both ideas are adaptations of successful soft-forking change mechanisms. The proposal has drawn criticism because it is vastly different from the way soft forks have historically worked. Soft forks usually work by making rule restrictions on classes of transactions that are already non-standard so that any non-upgraded miners are unlikely to be including txs in their blocks which would violate the new rules and should not have their blocks orphaned even after the fork. A hash power minority that has not upgraded will produce a minority branch, that will also drag along non-upgraded node operators leading to potential confusion. The idea behind orphaning the blocks of non-upgraded miners was to serve as a wake-up call to upgrade, to reduce the chances of a minority chain emerging in the first place, similar to what happens automatically with a soft-forking change. It is expected that most people do not want a split, especially the miners. According to current hashrate distribution tracking site coin.dance, it is very likely that within less than four weeks, 50% threshold will be reached for the proposed hard fork.The context provided is a PGP signature and two email messages related to the bitcoin-dev mailing list. The PGP signature appears to be at the end of an email message, but without the original message it is impossible to determine what the signature is verifying. The two email messages are both related to the bitcoin-dev mailing list and contain links to subscribe to the mailing list and manage subscriptions. The first email also contains a link to the archives of the mailing list. Overall, these emails seem to be routine communications related to the bitcoin-dev mailing list.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T22:31:47.165542+00:00