Published on: 2015-05-08T14:52:28+00:00
During the DevCore London event, Gavin Andresen put forward a proposal to improve the efficiency of block distribution in Bitcoin. He suggested distributing newly minted blocks as block headers along with all the transaction hashes included in the block, rather than sending the entire block. This approach has several advantages, including reducing the size of blocks being sent over the network and eliminating the block size limit. By only sending transactions once and utilizing smaller blocks, the network can operate more efficiently.However, implementing this idea would require changes to Bitcoin Core's internals, such as introducing a new block format and developing a method to bulk-request missing transactions. Several other ideas for reducing block size have also been discussed. Matt Corallo has proposed a relay network, Gavin Andresen has suggested IBLT based set reconciliation for blocks, and Greg Maxwell has proposed network block coding based on erasure coding, which also supports sharding.The primary goal of reducing block size is to minimize propagation delay, which in turn reduces forking rates. Fast propagation is crucial for full nodes to prevent centralization pressure. It is important to note that these techniques do not completely eliminate the need for block size, as all transactions still have to be transferred and processed. However, by optimizing block distribution and communication mechanisms, processing overheads and unnecessary roundtrips can be minimized.Various individuals are currently working on refining and optimizing these proposed mechanisms to make them practical and usable. Gavin's idea of distributing block headers and transaction hashes instead of full blocks is an interesting approach, but further input from experts familiar with Bitcoin Core's internals is necessary to assess the feasibility and potential impact of these changes.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T12:35:17.589520+00:00