Author: Eric Lombrozo 2015-09-16 23:23:18
Published on: 2015-09-16T23:23:18+00:00
There was a discussion on the variation to use for sequencenumbers in Bitcoin-dev mailing list. Two new repositories were created by Mark Friedenbach with changed rules regarding sequence numbers. The first repository inverts the sequence number, where nSequence=1 means 1 block relative lock-height and nSequence=LOCKTIME_THRESHOLD means 1 second relative lock-height. In the second repository, the sequence number is inverted and interpreted as a fixed-point number, allowing up to 5 year relative lock times using blocks as units or up to about 2-year relative lock times using seconds as units. Mark Friedenbach also discussed the maximum time required for relative lock-times and the number of bits needed for it. He suggested that about 19 bits are required for time-based relative lock-time and 18 bits for block-based relative lock-time, leaving 13 or 14 bits for other uses. He was uncomfortable going less than a year for a hard maximum but couldn't think of any use cases that would require more than a year of lock-time. Gregory Maxwell suggested representing one block with more than one increment to leave additional space for future signaling or allow higher resolution numbers for a share chain commitment.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T19:20:10.590014+00:00