Author: Johnson Lau 2016-11-17 18:08:09
Published on: 2016-11-17T18:08:09+00:00
The issue of banning an invalid block hash is not purely a peer-to-peer protocol issue, as some implementations ban it while others do not. This suggests that a bridge node would not be helpful in unifying a pure peer-to-peer split. Banning an invalid block hash is an implicit "first seen" consensus rule. Eric Voskuil describes two possibilities for creating a new valid block out of an old one: it could cause a reorg, but there would not be a chain split due to a different interpretation of valid. Rather, there would simply be two valid competing chains. However, this scenario would require both block and transaction validity with a transaction hash collision, as well as the transaction being valid within the block. The chances of this happening are low, but it could produce a deep reorg. If a new invalid block is created, it is discarded by everyone. However, this does not invalidate the hash of that block. Permanent blocking, as described by jl2012, would be a design choice for the peer-to-peer protocol, rather than a consensus issue. Libbitcoin does not ban invalidated hashes at all; it discards the block and drops the peer.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T00:07:03.445787+00:00