Author: Tom Zander 2017-03-27 17:29:57
Published on: 2017-03-27T17:29:57+00:00
The relation between block size and propagation speed has been decoupled due to the use of xthin/compact blocks that allow miners to send a tiny version of a block which is then recreated by the receiving node using the memory pool. By including pre-verified transactions from the memory pool, this approach avoids the problem of validating them again when a block is mined. Since there is no downside to a miner creating a bigger block, as long as all transactions are in the mempool, it seems that the problem of orphaned blocks due to less transactions may have already been solved. In a post on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, Btc Ideas suggested adding a preference for mined blocks to be the one with more transactions, which would come into play when two blocks of the same height are found. The first good block mined would be orphaned if it had less transactions than another. This rule could optionally apply to the current block and the previous one. This change could increase incentive for full blocks, as miners who assume that a smaller block will propagate faster might not win the reward if it has fewer transactions. Tom Zander, the writer of the blog and vlog at https://zander.github.io and https://vimeo.com/channels/tomscryptochannel, concludes that he is personally convinced that the problem of orphaned blocks due to less transactions has already been solved.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T22:37:16.200351+00:00