Author: Rusty Russell 2014-10-31 03:31:12
Published on: 2014-10-31T03:31:12+00:00
In this discussion thread, Rusty Russell proposed an algorithm to place a ceiling on confirmation latency by allowing weaker blocks after a certain time. Gregory Maxwell responded by stating that irregularity is a required property for convergence and that if the blocks were produced at exact intervals, the network would fragment and not converge. He further explained that the variance, being some huge multiple of the network radius, allows the network to converge. Bitcoin testnet implements a rule that allows lower difficulty blocks after a delay but it's not secure or intended to be so. In Rusty's proposal, block timestamps wouldn't reflect the delay, thus removing incentive to push timestamps forward. Gregory also suggested that if one is looking for faster evidence that the network is working on a particular transaction set, then publishing work in progress (WIP) blocks could provide evidence. However, he mentioned that miners need to be incentivized to publish them.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T03:45:34.079780+00:00