Author: Tao Effect 2017-11-02 23:55:55
Published on: 2017-11-02T23:55:55+00:00
In an email thread on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, a proposal was made to introduce an auxiliary proof-of-work (POW) in order to mitigate mining centralization pressures and introduce an intermediary confirmation point. The proposal suggests alternating between two POWs, with each normal block pointing to the previous auxiliary block and containing all transactions from that block. The reward for the auxiliary POW would increase over time and be transferred via a soft-fork restriction requiring a coinbase output to an address published in the auxiliary-POW block.The difficulty of the auxiliary POW would be adjusted based on the average time between normal blocks found to auxiliary blocks found. The heaviest chain rule change would take place as a semi-hard change, where non-upgraded nodes could get on the wrong chain in case of attack. However, it might be possible to construct an alert system that notifies non-upgraded nodes of an upcoming rule change.The proposal outlines several questions and open questions related to the implementation of this idea, including evaluating different POW candidates, evaluating difficulty adjustment rules, simulating miner behavior to identify detrimental behavior patterns, and determining if spare capacity can be used to find alternative or attacking blocks.The author notes that the choice of a suitable POW will require deep analysis, as there are potential pitfalls such as botnet mining, POWs that seem ASIC resistant but are not, and unexpected/covert optimizations such as ASCIBOOST, which present a potential centralizing and destabilizing force.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T21:54:35.118344+00:00