Author: praxeology_guy 2017-03-26 11:12:01
Published on: 2017-03-26T11:12:01+00:00
In a conversation on the Bitcoin development mailing list, Martin Stolze proposes transaction tiering as a way for users to choose which miners confirm their transactions. He suggests that, potentially, miners could create their own private communication channel or listening port for submitting transactions that they would not relay to other miners or the public node relay network. Users could then choose who they want to relay to. Miners would be incentivized to not relay higher fee transactions because they would want to keep them to themselves for higher profits. However, Martin argues that this would not be the case because users could detect such behavior and withdraw future business if they notice that their transaction is not included in a block despite there being transactions with lower fees included. Martin also discusses the term “miner” and suggests it should be replaced with “block producer” to better describe what they do. He explains that in Bitcoin, every synchronizing node that verifies signatures is a transaction processor, but what sets block producers apart from full relay nodes is that they create "blocks" which are "ledger change candidates" that include transactions and proof-of-work. Calling them block producers does not imply that they do all of the necessary transaction processing and all users should be fine with running Electrum wallets or even SPV clients. They produce blocks, but it is still up to other users in the network to do transaction processing and decide for themselves if they want to accept particular blocks.Martin also presents the idea that Bitcoin's blockchain is a digital location or space and the authority lies with whoever governs this particular block space. A miner can, or cannot, include a user's transaction. To protect their interest, users need to choose which authority processes their transactions. Martin believes people care who processes their transactions, and a lot of bickering could be spared if users could choose. He states that transaction tiering could motivate transaction processors to behave in accordance with user interest.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T22:20:56.822264+00:00