Author: Christian Decker 2015-05-11 12:34:43
Published on: 2015-05-11T12:34:43+00:00
The article discusses the tradeoff between propagation speed gain and blockchain fork rate in smaller blocks in Bitcoin. It suggests that although the propagation speed gain is linear in size reduction, after a certain point, the delay of the first byte takes over. Additionally, the blockchain fork rate increases superlinearly with smaller blocks, which can lead to inefficient use of mining resources and give an advantage to attackers who are more efficient in communication. The author strongly advises against increasing the block generation rate in Bitcoin as it would be a controversial proposal and would not solve anything.A response from Dave Hudson points out that blacklisting miners who engage in bad behavior is not effective because large-scale miners can easily make themselves look like many smaller-scale miners. Relaying blocks via different addresses is also effortless and cost-minimal. Anonymity on behalf of transaction validators and block makers makes it almost impossible to maintain any sanctions against anti-social behavior.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T20:36:48.340077+00:00