Published on: 2012-05-29T16:30:52+00:00
In a 2012 email thread, Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik raised concerns about the prevalence of empty blocks being mined by some Bitcoin miners. Despite Satoshi Nakamoto's suggestion to hash only the fixed 80-byte header, some miners found it more profitable to mine empty blocks rather than waiting for new transactions. Garzik proposed two potential solutions to address this issue.The first solution suggested not storing or relaying empty blocks if a certain amount of time had passed since the last block. This approach aimed to disincentivize miners from mining empty blocks and encourage them to include transactions instead. However, there were concerns that no-transaction (no-TX) miners might include statically generated transactions, which could undermine the effectiveness of this solution.The second proposal involved ensuring that the latest block includes a certain percentage of unconfirmed transactions from the mempool. This would incentivize miners to include transactions in their blocks and improve the efficiency of the Bitcoin network. However, there was a concern that this approach could lead to miners refusing to relay quickly found blocks.Another participant in the discussion, Arthur, recommended a stronger change to prevent a mystery miner from masking their block by including a few transactions to themselves. The ongoing debate highlighted the challenge of optimizing the mining process while maintaining the integrity and security of the Bitcoin network.Overall, the proposed client implementation changes aimed to discourage the mining of empty blocks and incentivize miners to include transactions. This would increase the efficiency of the network and enhance the user experience for Bitcoin users. However, it remains to be seen whether these solutions will be widely adopted by the Bitcoin community and implemented in future versions of the Bitcoin client.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T03:33:18.252209+00:00