Author: Gavin Andresen 2011-09-13 15:06:37
Published on: 2011-09-13T15:06:37+00:00
A recent exploit has been launched against the low-difficulty alternative chains. Bitcoin should be overlapping the ranges of block timestamps that it uses to calculate difficulty adjustments. Bitcoin's "what time is it" code is kind of a hack. Fixing (1) would mean a potential block-chain split and before considering doing that, second-best solutions should be considered. Fixing (2) is easier and can be done by incorporating an ntp library or simply removing the bitcoin mining code from the client but requiring pools and miners to have accurate-to-within-a-minute system clocks. If they don't have accurate clocks, their blocks will be "discouraged." By fixing (2), (1) will become a non-issue because if miners cannot mess around with block times very much then it will be very difficult for them to manipulate the difficulty for their benefit.
Updated on: 2023-06-04T19:34:25.046762+00:00