Author: Drak 2013-11-05 23:44:15
Published on: 2013-11-05T23:44:15+00:00
In a conversation on November 5, 2013, Gregory Maxwell and Drak were discussing the issue of choosing winning blocks in a fair way. Drak suggested that if two blocks were broadcast within a certain period of each other, the lower target should be chosen as the winner. Gregory Maxwell pointed out a flaw in this logic, stating that if his solution ended up with an unusually low number, he would be incentivized to hurry up and release his block. Gregory then proposed a two-step solution: first, decide whether high or low wins based on the leading bytes from hash(alice)+hash(bob), and second, choose the winner based on the higher or lower hash value of alice and bob's hashes. This makes it a guessing game and eliminates the incentive to hurry up and release a block with an unusually low hash value.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T19:28:43.090144+00:00