Author: Kyle Jerviss 2013-11-07 04:15:40
Published on: 2013-11-07T04:15:40+00:00
In this discussion on the Bitcoin-development mailing list, Peter Todd discusses his miner strategy of sending blocks to only 51% of the hashpower and the implications of this strategy. He calculates that the actual threshold is 29.3% and explains that once a miner has more than 29.3% of the hashing power, they have no incentive to publish the blocks they mine. Todd also notes that if a miner is trying to beat other miners, then sending blocks to >29.3% of the hashing power is even more crazy. Additionally, Todd points out that the strategy does not require a special low-latency network or a lot of hashing power, as the strategy still works if a miner is, say, a 5% pool. He concludes that "we're fucked" and that the awful incentive structure must be fixed before the inflation subsidy gets any smaller. Finally, Todd invites large pools who want to try this stuff out to give him a shout and advises miners on larger pools to mine on smaller pools or p2pool.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T19:32:57.918588+00:00