Author: gabe appleton 2015-05-12 19:43:45
Published on: 2015-05-12T19:43:45+00:00
The discussion revolves around the desirable characteristics that the Bitcoin network should have. One of the issues discussed is the security concern of an attacker disrupting a small part of the chain, leading to a network-wide DoS. It is suggested that a hybrid option would be better, spreading the risk instead of concentrating it in full nodes. Another issue is block coverage, which should have locality, and historical blocks are almost always needed in contiguous ranges, so having random peers with totally random blocks would be horrific for performance. The decision to contact a node should need O(1) communications, and the expression of what blocks a node has should be compact so it can be rumored efficiently. Figuring out what block ranges a peer has given should be computationally efficient. The communication about what blocks a node has should also be compact. The growth of the blockchain shouldn't cause much, or any, need to refetch old blocks. Several schemes are proposed that come close to meeting all desirable characteristics but fail one. Gregory Maxwell believes it's very likely possible to come up with something that meets all criteria.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T20:51:06.995868+00:00