140
141

When almost 11,000 unconfirmed transactions, F2Pool mining blocks without transactions... (blockchain.info)

bdangh が 投稿

上位 200 件のコメント全て表示する 213
並べ替え:
ベスト
トップ新着論争中古い順Q&A

[–]basil00 24ポイント25ポイント  (5子コメント)

Downloading and validating blocks takes time (which equates to wasted hashing); so some pools resort to mining an empty block on top the new block header (fast to download) as soon as it is announced. The pool can only "safely" do this trick if they mine empty blocks.

Meanwhile the new block is downloaded+validated in the background, and the pool will start mining a non-empty block as soon as that process is completed. But sometimes an empty block is found first.

[–]i_wolf 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Why their blocks are of different sizes? 999k, 400k, 200k in a row.

[–]ll_cool_james -4ポイント-3ポイント  (2子コメント)

This sounds interesting. Can you explain in more depth how empty block mining is used to save time?

[–]rabidus_ 18ポイント19ポイント  (0子コメント)

but.. he just explained ..

[–]BobbySeidens 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

As soon as a pool finds out that another miner has produced a block, all of their hashing on the previous block is wasted. So, they want to get new work on top of that other block out to their miners ASAP. Since they get the new block header from the network first, and that is all that is required to mine an empty block, they tell all their miners to drop what they are doing and mine the new work.

Before they can get their miners working on a block with transactions in it they have to do the following:

  1. Download the rest of the block
  2. Make sure the block is properly formatted, high enough difficulty
  3. All transactions are properly formatted and valid (pretty sure that means all the ins up in levelDB)
  4. Find out what transactions it has included and remove those transactions from their list of unconfirmed transactions
  5. Consider which transactions (if any) from their list to include in the next block.
  6. Package the block

By sending empty work out first, they save their miners a few seconds of working on useless stuff.

[–]throwthecan 43ポイント44ポイント  (5子コメント)

Press (1) to equip pitchfork

[–]BaurusdB 15ポイント16ポイント  (1子コメント)

Hard or soft?

[–]smooothh 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

111111111

[–]Oda_Krell 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Press (Q) to query about reasons why you should equip pitchfork.

...

Just kidding, this is the Internet: *(1)* *(1)* *(1)* *(1)* *(1)*...

[–]drwasho 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Not excusing them, but I think this is rational behavior (in the economic sense) given the backlog. One more reason to increase the block size.

[–]macbook-air 22ポイント23ポイント  (2子コメント)

F2Pool mined a block of 999999 bytes earlier. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3aq9rw/block_361570_is_999999_bytes_in_size/

[–]jwBTC 13ポイント14ポイント  (1子コメント)

Yeah I can't help but think f2 may have hit some issue with the amount of SPAM we are dealing with and that wonderful Chinese Internet combined with whatever code they are running hit some error condition which resulted in the zero block.

If f2 was constantly producing zero blocks that is one thing. But considering they are the most popular pool (and for good reason too: rare PPS mining with 4% fee allows for reliable guaranteed 96% payouts for miners) I think the occasional zero block while annoying really isn't a big deal.

[–]eleuthria 23ポイント24ポイント  (0子コメント)

They produce a lot of zero tx blocks. It's not an error, it's eloipool's design. It sends a blank template of work out first, then a new template a little later that contains transactions, as a hack around poor performance when blocks change.

[–]btcdrak 32ポイント33ポイント  (14子コメント)

Eligius is filtering out the spam so will not mine any of the spam transactions.

[–]alexpeterson91 24ポイント25ポイント  (13子コメント)

And exactly what is Eligius's definition of spam today?

[–]luke-jrLuke Dashjr - Bitcoin Expert 32ポイント33ポイント  (6子コメント)

Near the end of the documentation for 0.10.x-ljr is a detailed description of my spamfilter patch. Besides this, I think wizkid057 has some further improvements; at the very least, he has been monitoring the situation today and tried to keep on top of it. Since other miners are just mining 90% spam, Eligius has increased its max block size to 1 MB to try to clear up as many non-spam transactions as possible.

[–]portabello75 10ポイント11ポイント  (1子コメント)

I guess once in a blue moon I DO agree with LukeJr :)

[–]aminok 10ポイント11ポイント  (0子コメント)

The definition of spam is not based strictly on fees, and therefore is not transaction type neutral.

[–]binaryFate 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

You're not campaigning for net neutrality aren't you? All those TCP packets carrying gambling and porno related data, fighting on equal grounds with respectable activities for bandwidth.
You'd probably answer they're simply not using TCP/IP properly, as "it should be".

[–]John_Rigell 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Speaking of Eligius, I mine there and I have my coins goto a paperwallet for long term storage since I like having "No Inputs (Newly Generated Coins)" with my coins. How do I sign with a paperwallet to change from Tonal bitcoin ~0.04 per auto withdraw to something more meaningful. Say 0.25 btc? I use bitaddress.org to generate my addresses.

[–]Darft -2ポイント-1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Look at you now, first they fight you, then they need you.

Looks like people stance on spam filtering changed when they started to suffer.

[–]n60storm4 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think /u/luke-jr is in the wrong doing this filtering and it is a danger to the network. It's open source though so all the power to him.

[–]btcdrak 16ポイント17ポイント  (5子コメント)

ask /u/luke-jr, but certainly this stress test is spam that everyone will have to store forever.

[–]zcc0nonA 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

isn't that only if the txs remain unspent?

[–]luke-jrLuke Dashjr - Bitcoin Expert 14ポイント15ポイント  (0子コメント)

Everyone needs to download the entire blockchain once, regardless of whether the txs are spent or not. Archive nodes therefore need to store it so people have somewhere to download it from. Pruned full nodes can discard spent transactions after they are checked.

[–]btcdrak 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

If it's spent you also have to store the blocks forever. Pruning will help, but you will always need nodes that have full transaction history.

[–]wizkid057 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

After nearly 3 years I still find it interesting that people think Luke still runs Eligius... https://goo.gl/iUgYQk

Anyway, I added a filter to Eligius's bitcoind that appears to successful filter today's spam attack/stress test/DoS/whatever you want to call it from being included in Eligius's blocks.

There was much rejoicing today on IRC when Eligius mined a ~900KB block that contained nearly 2800 transactions, about 70% by size (about 85% by count) of the ~1300KB worth of non-spam transactions being broadcast and most people's legit transactions that were delayed by the spam attack were confirmed. (take 2, reddit)

[–]PhiMinD 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

OMG WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE ITS ALL OVER SELL NOW!!

/s

[–]rydan 16ポイント17ポイント  (0子コメント)

Can't. All my sales won't confirm :(

[–]kynek99 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Are we dead yet ?

[–]nbvvc4 5ポイント6ポイント  (11子コメント)

Can someone explain to me what is the benefit for a miner not to include transactions

[–]thesherper 13ポイント14ポイント  (8子コメント)

if they solve a block with fewer transactions (generally smaller size in kilobytes) then it can propagate across the network quicker (supposedly) than a block with 1mb of data (or more likely in the future) since its a race to solve a block. if 2 miners solve a block but the network rewards the one most agree upon quickest, the lag to send the heavier block can be considered a disadvantage.

[–]Zomdifros 8ポイント9ポイント  (1子コメント)

if 2 miners solve a block but the network rewards the one most agree upon quickest, the lag to send the heavier block can be considered a disadvantage.

Which I assume will become less of a problem if the block reward goes down relative to the transaction fees.

[–]lucasjkr 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Absolutely. Right now the reward is the motivation for mining, the fees are a pittance. When that changes, when the reward makes up the minority's of income then miners will be trying to scoop up as many fee paying transactions as they can.

[–]Xekyo 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

They can start mining an empty block once they have the previous block's header.

They can only start on a filled block however, once they have processed the transactions of the block as well. Otherwise if they include a transaction that was already in the last block, their new block would be invalid.

So, until they have processed the transactions, they are mining on an empty block in order to not lose their hashing rate.

[–]PhyllisWheatenhousen -4ポイント-3ポイント  (0子コメント)

They get to keep the transaction fees.

[–]null0pointer 14ポイント15ポイント  (4子コメント)

2 empty blocks in a row...

https://blockchain.info/block/00000000000000000e4f70a1b4f82163a6766b21d4c36b09abd5e05be9a5db25

https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000009df00cf48638d16a809e18e0537eea97a362ddd8eeee8cd

[–]hietheiy 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's because they wanted to help the 'stress' test.

[–]Satoshi- 20ポイント21ポイント  (7子コメント)

F2Pool doesn't care about Bitcoin's long term success. All they care about is the mining operation bringing them money at this moment.

[–]MeanOfPhidias 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Oh the horror! Private companies interested in profits! If only we had government overlords to save us from profits!

How about a Computer Science argument? Why do you hate Bitcoin?

[–]i_wolf 3ポイント4ポイント  (5子コメント)

They won't have any money if the price crashes at this moment. We know how fragile Bitcoin can be.

Edit: I clearly meant fragile BTC price, not Bitcoin itself.

[–]Satoshi- 3ポイント4ポイント  (4子コメント)

What makes you think they keep the Bitcoin mined?

[–]i_wolf 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

You said they care about money. Well if they don't, the difficulty will drop and someone else will replace them.

[–]miles37 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

If they are selling the Bitcoin then of course they would not want the price of the Bitcoin they're selling to drop, right?

[–]unvocal_username 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

And what about the mining equipment?

[–]smartfbrankings 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

That goes obsolete in very short time periods anyway. Miners don't have long term interest.

[–]skang404 7ポイント8ポイント  (27子コメント)

  1. If a pool has advantage in the mining race to skip searching for transactions with fees, when it receives a confirmation for a block, then Gavin should have his answer and must really talk to them to understand it. Either the pool will learn that its not advantageous and will start including because of transaction fees or else Gavin will learn that assuming that '20sec' in his simulation was faulty maybe.
  2. If it really is beneficial then more pools will start doing this, bitcoin becomes insecure and susceptible to delay in confirmations. Thus people who want to use bitcoin will invest in mining. If 'propagation delay advantage' is really something then I see more mining power in the future. Also, brings out another anti-fragile nature of this amazing protocol.
  3. Miners who do not want their held bitcoins worthless must get off such pools playing dirty to secure value in long run, or start selling immediately not caring about long run. Thus if most miners are dirty, price will come down really fast and force them to act clean.

[–]SwagPokerz 5ポイント6ポイント  (16子コメント)

If it really is beneficial then more pools will start doing this, bitcoin becomes insecure and susceptible to 51% attack.

Why? As far as security is concerned, a block is a block; any empty block buries existing blocks in the blockchain that much more. At worst, an empty block simply delays transactions from being put into the blockchain, but it still secures that much more every transaction that is already in the blockchain.

[–]skang404 2ポイント3ポイント  (15子コメント)

Yes I wrote that by mistake, I was thinking the right thing, but was too busy thinking that even if majority is bad, the % of clean miners are the ones that are effectively sustaining the network then, and this is similar to rich people corrupting in govt by the virtue of their richness but not providing the value they need to provide yet availing the incentive; just because they got in by their richness. So my mind was like, even if honest people are 10%, bitcoin is fine, but the 90% are getting bitcoins and selling it off so what would be the effect?? Is this the beginning of corruption in bitcoin??& so on.. That 10% figure came out like that, but yes its a mistake..I corrected it..

[–]SwagPokerz -1ポイント0ポイント  (14子コメント)

The rich don't corrupt government; rather, the government corrupts rich people by having too much power to sell to rich people.

[–]skang404 1ポイント2ポイント  (7子コメント)

It's easier for the rich to get into the government because they can buy lobbying power and effect people with advertisements, thus corrupting it. People don't care about it because even if a minority of elected people are clean, their roads get built.

Dirty miners are these rich people, buying their power into mining. Even if minority is clean and transactions go through, people don't care.

But in the long run, both of the above systems are parasitic behavior & will crash their ecosystem - their respective economy.

[–]SwagPokerz 0ポイント1ポイント  (6子コメント)

Those rich people get into government, because it tempts them with so much power; the problem is that government is too powerful; the problem is that government is based on coercion, rather than voluntary exchange.

[–]skang404 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Absolutely, but how is it related here? Did you get what I meant?

[–]sapiophile -1ポイント0ポイント  (4子コメント)

...And how is wealth not an equally or even more tempting power?

Honestly, the laissez-faire myopia really must develop some limits, at times. Come on.

[–]Noosterdam 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

People are tempted to get rich. In a free market, they go out and make a useful product or service. Doesn't bother me. Under a government, the tempted person can actually damage life and property with impunity through the government. How are these remotely comparable?

[–]sapiophile 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Oh, how could I be so foolish! Of course a person motivated solely by wealth would never

damage

life

and

property

Look at all the useful products and services these entrepreneurial spirits have wrought for us!

And don't even start to focus on the "impunity" part - most of the actual people responsible for these kinds of atrocities, in the minority of cases where they are even held accountable at all, are not being meaningfully punished, personally.

[–]i_wolf 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Wealth is not a power, you can't buy something other than through a voluntary agreement. Wealth can buy power, but only if it is for sale.

[–]sapiophile 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

You've got to be kidding. The sycophant to the wealthy is about the most overused trope in the book, and it's very much based on real life. You mean to tell me that these people don't wield power?

[–]lucasjkr 0ポイント1ポイント  (5子コメント)

Oh yes, before government, rich people had no way to exert power over ordinary people. Like in old England, barons and serfs... Even modern day Afghanistan, it was absolutely afghanistans strong central government that gave rise to the warlords who tore the country apart in the 1990s...

[–]SwagPokerz 0ポイント1ポイント  (4子コメント)

before government

Warlords, barons, and chiefs, etc., are obviously forms of government (coercion instead of voluntary exchange); you contradict yourself. Try again?

[–]lucasjkr 0ポイント1ポイント  (3子コメント)

Warlord isn't a government imbued title, it's a term for someone with wealth and resources enough to field private army in order to expand that power

Likewise, in old times, being a baron wasn't a title that the king imbued, it was a function of being part of nobility, the wealthy, the land owners, who could carve out their own private fiefdoms.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism

[–]SwagPokerz 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Your logic is circular and therefore invalid.

[–]lucasjkr 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

How does Bitcoin prevent those with more resources from wielding them to the detriment of those with less resources? It doesn't. Thinking that the government is the source of all power, that the rich couldn't subvert power to do their own bidding if not for having a government available to subvert, that's fallacy.

In old times and modern times, be in feudal estates with lords and serfs to warlords fielding private armies and, yes, coercing the populations in the areas they control, people are plenty capable of wielding power over others without needing a government to grant them the power to do so.

[–]chriswen 0ポイント1ポイント  (8子コメント)

2) Of course there is going to be more mining power in the future. But does that mean people are going to be mining at a loss? I don't see that happening anytime soon.

3) When the coinbase transactions fall, will the miners have enough of an impact to be able to crash the price? Number three doesn't make sense.

[–]skang404 0ポイント1ポイント  (7子コメント)

Mining at a loss

Nobody would mine at a loss. If the delay in propagation of blocks does give a headstart to the miner, they have more "profit" in the long run & so they would do it. Gavin's simulations say there is no such effective headstart, f2pool's behavior suggests otherwise.

When transactions fall

Assume that 10% miners are mining honestly including everything etc and 90% just immediately start mining. Since they get a headstart by not processing the transactions searching for fees, or by freeing up bandwidth because they only care about previous block's hash to come through and do not care about public's transactions etc. they would earn more coins in long run than the 10% ones. Since all of them are paying equally for electricity, equipment etc, the honest 10% will be at a disadvantage. This would mean either the fees will rise and thus lesser people using it and thus dropping the value of bitcoin or it would mean them realising this and immediately selling thus crashing the price themselves..

[–]chriswen 0ポイント1ポイント  (6子コメント)

Thus people who want to use bitcoin will invest in mining. If 'propagation delay advantage' is really something then I see more mining power in the future.

Regardless of 'propagation delay advantage' we will still be seeing more mining power in the future.

2) fees could rise and that would convince unhonest mining miners to add tx. Also greedy mining is something different then what you mention. You can make more with greedy mining then with mining small blocks, a lot more. I don't even think its comparable.

Also assuming a 90% dishonesty rate is quite ridiculous.

You're also assuming a rise in fees will cause the price to drop.

[–]skang404 0ポイント1ポイント  (5子コメント)

90% was just an extreme figure to express majority as bad.
Rise in fees will cause less usage and thus price will drop.
What is greedy mining?

[–]chriswen 0ポイント1ポイント  (4子コメント)

It's withholding blocks so that you're the only one mining it so you get a head start.

[–]skang404 0ポイント1ポイント  (3子コメント)

Lol. How is that a head start? If meanwhile another pool finds this block your work is wasted.. This could be useful as Finney Attack but is still very risky

[–]chriswen 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

Search it up, there's many analysis's on the probability of profitability. You'd think you'd need 50% of the hashpower to do greedy mine but it's still effective with even only 30% of the global hashrate. If someone else releases a block you can release yours to try to win. But even if you lose that block, the rewards can be quite big. Because once you get two blocks, you can release the first block when you feel like it or you can keep on mining for a third block and release two blocks when someone releases one block.

[–]credibit 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thus people who want to use bitcoin will invest in mining.

This is the weakest part of your argument. Many people will choose another payment system over needing to invest in mining.

[–]wounddead 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think Satoshi didn't realize that there were so many whinging fuckers around. Everyone needs to learn to adapt or there is no point.

People are acting just the existing fiat system, everyone is afraid of change and are happy with how their finances are and not looking at the wider problems and infrastructure. Short term.

[–]felipelalli 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

This cannot be considered an attack to the network?

[–][削除されました]  (26子コメント)

[deleted]

    [–]luke-jrLuke Dashjr - Bitcoin Expert 52ポイント53ポイント  (6子コメント)

    Yeah, it's called testnet.

    [–]Throwahoymatie 22ポイント23ポイント  (3子コメント)

    Lol finally one of your posts isn't downvoted into oblivion.

    [–]i_wolf 14ポイント15ポイント  (2子コメント)

    Actually I think it's better that we're testing it in real life.

    [–]zombiecoiner 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

    What, that luke-jr's posts aren't automatically downvoted into oblivion?

    [–]i_wolf 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Nothing is automatically downvoted

    [–]ethereump 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

    what kind of transactions are you blocking? last year I recall you were against XCP, MSC spam transactions being processed through your pool. Is that still happening?

    [–]litecoin-p2pool 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

    === spamfilter ===

    This is a policy change that improves the spam filtering capabilities of Bitcoin Core, notably including pattern matching for notorious spammer scripts.

    Specifically, spam created by the following are identified and ignored:

    • BetCoin Dice
    • Crazy Horse Battery Staple
    • Counterparty (only old spammy encoding, NOT non-spammy encodings)
    • Lucky Bit
    • Mastercoin
    • SatoshiBones
    • SatoshiDICE

    source

    [–]michelfo 10ポイント11ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Here the goal seem to be to determine how various people will react (miners, nodes, users) in a situation where the network is saturated with transactions and find out how much disruption it causes. There's no other way to do it than on the real network.

    When you do a fire drill, you do it in the real building while people are doing regular activities. Any other place or moment would make the drill pointless.

    [–]killer_storm 7ポイント8ポイント  (4子コメント)

    I think their (CoinWallet.eu) plan was to create a panic and short Bitcoin.

    [–]btcdrak 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

    Miners must be loving them today. 20BTC in fees...

    [–]sebrandon1 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Mmmmm gotta love some fees. :)

    [–]saigonsquare 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

    If they wanted to create a panic, why would they advertise that it would be a limited, restricted stress test for the good of the network? That's kind of the opposite of panic-creating.

    There's no panic. Everyone knows it's a stress test. There's no price movement. The "omg everyone will panoc and short" conspiracy theory is patently false.

    [–]Natalia_AnatolioPAMM 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

    and they succeeded I guess!

    [–]bdangh[S] 6ポイント7ポイント  (8子コメント)

    My transaction finally confirmed after 3 hours, it was sent from Coinbase and I was needed money ASAP :) I imagine what will happen if it's DDOSed with bigger amount of bitcoins...

    [–]rydan -2ポイント-1ポイント  (7子コメント)

    You do realize you could have paid a higher fee right? It is your own fault it took 3 hours. Next time pay that $0.10.

    [–]bdangh[S] 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Unfortunately Coinbase controls fees, they put 0.0002Ƀ, if I had control I would pay more

    [–]DakotaChiliBeans 4ポイント5ポイント  (3子コメント)

    First they came for a Nickel and you said nothing, then they came for a dime and you cheered, then they came for a quarter and you quietly became concerned, then they came for a 1.00, and you became angry , then they came for 5.00, you could not take it anymore and screamed to stop the fee gouging, but those that cared were ignored, shunned, and laughed at. Now, it's your turn.

    [–]jmaller -2ポイント-1ポイント  (2子コメント)

    First they came for

    Who is they? The senders are the ones who designate the fee's.

    [–]bitofsense 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

    and the miners are the ones who process them. this thread is testament to the fact that miners don't even regard transaction fees right now, but you'd be a fool to not see that fee rising happening already is a pretty bad sign for how high fees could be when actual bitcoin adoption goes exponential

    コメントをもっと表示する (1 返事)

      [–]SwagPokerz 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

      Well, if he could RE-TRANSMIT his transaction with a higher fee, I'm sure he might do so.

      Alas, Bitcoin's fee market is broken.

      [–]rydan -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

      He can. Just make sure F2Pool catches it.

      [–]i_wolf 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

      If this is technically possible, then we must test it and learn to deal with it. What doesn't kill Bitcoin makes it stronger. At least, we now see that hitting a hard limit when nobody cares about fees yet was not the best idea.

      [–]da_unique 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

      Id say test was successful in that case :>

      [–]PhyllisWheatenhousen 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

      I was going to do a joke where I sent a zero fee transaction and posted it on here to have people guess how many days it would take to confirm. Too bad the inputs were old enough and the transaction got in the next block. :/

      コメントをもっと表示する (1 返事)

        [–]tobetossedaway 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Rational. Self. Interest.

        [–]hietheiy 4ポイント5ポイント  (20子コメント)

        If we can do a block size limit in the client software, why don't we create a minimum transactions in block rule?

        [–]smartfbrankings 6ポイント7ポイント  (10子コメント)

        It's trivial to game it.

        [–]char_star 1ポイント2ポイント  (5子コメント)

        Early on in Bitcoin, most blocks only had the one coinbase transaction. If we had a rule requiring a minimum transaction count and if for some reason there were no transactions to process, miners would just make a bunch of dummy transactions to meet the minimum. And even if there were transactions, it would be faster to make dummy transactions than it would be to wait for others to propagate into the miner node's pool. So a minimum wouldn't work unless we drastically altered the protocol and even then, it might not.

        [–]hietheiy 4ポイント5ポイント  (4子コメント)

        But if a node has 500 transactions sitting in the mempool that were all first seen greater then 10 minutes ago, and a block comes across that includes less then 50% of them then it could reject the block or refuse to propagate it. I know the devil is in the details, but it seems like some rule could be devised.

        [–]lucasjkr 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

        If miners and nodes were in the business of choosing which blocks they will and won't propagate, then they could band together and effectively shut out competition.

        " oh, that block came from Ghash.io? Let's ignore that one"

        Which could turn into

        "That block contains a transaction that spends these "bad"coins (or which sends coins to a "verboten" address), let's ignore that)"

        Get 51% of the pools colluding in that way (China's big 4 miners control 60%) and Bitcoin would fall to pieces. Get less than 51% of pools doing such and it has no effect at all.

        [–]hietheiy 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        If miners and nodes were in the business of choosing which blocks they will and won't propagate, then they could band together and effectively shut out competition.

        This is exactly how bitcoin core works. The software has rules which define criteria for a block to be valid and for it to be propagated.

        [–]char_star 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

        Yeah, that would be much easier to do since it would not require changes to the protocol per se. Maybe just a check box in the GUIs that says "discourage empty blocks"

        [–]hietheiy 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Exactly. Don't propagate them. I like how you think. How could we make this actually feasible?

        [–]lee1026 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        So if interest in bitcoin ever drop, no one will ever be able to mine a block ever again!

        [–]lucasjkr 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

        So then corrupt miners will be forced to send a set number of transactions to themselves each block? They lose no money, since they can specifically include those transactions in their blocks. Even if they included fees, they'd lose nothing because they could just keep those transactions for themselves. If it's 5 txs per block or 1000, a corrupt mining pool could include however many that threshold is at no cost to themselves. M That creates bigger blocks, but has no other effect.

        [–]hietheiy 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Can you imaging a rule where a percentage of the transactions had to match the transactions the rest of the network had seen? Gavin has talked about such a thing before.

        [–]bitofsense 6ポイント7ポイント  (25子コメント)

        and why should they? the transaction fees are not a significant amount of revenue

        [–]SexyAndImSorry 17ポイント18ポイント  (9子コメント)

        Because, if they don't process transactions, then the network is useless and their coins are worth nothing.

        [–]SwagPokerz 7ポイント8ポイント  (4子コメント)

        if they don't process transactions, then the network is useless

        Not so. An empty block still secures that much more all of the transactions that already exist in the blockchain; for you, they may be a waste, but for someone else, they're another confirmation. Of course, the same can be said for a block that is filled with transactions other than your own.

        [–]SexyAndImSorry 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

        New transactions must continue to be processed or else the network is useless. Those who own bitcoin through confirmed transactions would not be able to spend them if miners decided to only create 0 transaction blocks. Zero transaction blocks only help the network if there are enough miners continuing to process new transactions. There's also not really any reason to process a zero transaction block since you recieve fees for including them. Even if the fees are small in comparison to the reward, they're still better than recieving no fees at all. Plus, bigger blocks take longer to verify, so you gain a small advantage, time wise, on other miners. That is assuming they continue working on the previous block while they verify your solution.

        [–]SwagPokerz 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        • That goes without saying; it's pointless to discuss such a scenario.

        • Indeed, miners get paid only by being able to spend their bitcoin; ergo, at least some transactions must always be processed.

        [–]pitchbend 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

        If the network stalls and doesn't process new transactions it doesn't matter how many confirmations old transactions have, those bitcoins are useless, not more secure.

        [–]SwagPokerz 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        • That goes without saying; it's pointless to discuss such a scenario.

        • Indeed, miners get paid only by being able to spend their bitcoin; ergo, at least some transactions must always be processed.

        [–]QuasiSteve -5ポイント-4ポイント  (3子コメント)

        Unless they're hodlers, their mined coins right now are worth $6.2k - whether they include transactions or (initially) not.

        [–]i_wolf 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

        It's only because the network is still working and most transactions are processed.

        [–]QuasiSteve 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

        Right, so if they perceive an advantage to mining an empty block (initially anyway), and 'the network is still working', then they may see no good reason not to do this; at least no in terms of "us, specifically, mining empty blocks is making the mined coin less valuable"

        [–]i_wolf 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

        They should realize their actions provoke others to do the same and endanger their own profits eventually. If there's a possibility of such situation, it's better to encounter it sooner than later. Miners should learn to deal with it, it's their own businesses and their own multimillion investments are at stake. I'm sure they'll manage.

        [–]lowstrife 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Not yet they aren't. After the halving next year and if current rate of TX growth continues, it will account for an additional 3-4% ontop of the block reward. That's nonzero. I don't think you will see many miners mining 1kb blocks then.

        Eventually the problem of miner seeing selfish will sort itself out.

        [–]jrmxrf 1ポイント2ポイント  (6子コメント)

        sooner or later irrational players will be forced out of the game

        [–]BlockchainOfFools 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Irrational doesn't mean "disagrees with your reasoning." Participation in a market isn't inherently rational. Rational action is informed by context and the goals of the one who is taking the action. If you don't know what those goals are, you cannot gauge how rational the action is. It's not unreasonable to speculate that the objective of apparently irrational action is to change the context surrounding it until it becomes rational.

        They have their reasons, and the fact is, if we agree with those reasons or not they are able to do what they like.

        Obviously flaming them (and probably worse) hasn't stopped the flood test from happening, so it is something that has to be factored in to the total risk profile of using Bitcoin.

        [–]QuasiSteve 3ポイント4ポイント  (4子コメント)

        To them it might appear to be rational, part of a strategy even:
        http://i.imgur.com/cMeJksT.png

        ( See also: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/39f59k/aftermath_of_may_29_stress_test_btc_china_antpool/cs57dl2 )

        [–]jrmxrf 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

        Can you elaborate? They seem to be losing money not taking transaction fees. Orphan rate doesn't seem to be big enough to do this at this point.

        [–]QuasiSteve 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        I can't - as I said, to them it might appear to be rational. I'm not convinced it is mathematically/economically rational. AntPool has more 'empty' blocks, but their little scatterplot thing doesn't have such a clear delineation. Thankfully, it's still very much the minority of blocks that are empty and none of the large pools seem to be mining empty blocks exclusively.

        [–]jstolfi 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        I suppose that it is not the actual orphan rate, but the fear of being orphaned or simply losing the race for the next block. A mined block pays 25 BTC, the fees only 0.1 BTC or so

        [–]BlockchainOfFools -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Yes, exactly. What is and is not "rational action" is very context sensitive.

        [–]mustyoshi 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        The great thing about mining is nobody can force you to include tx.

        [–]Medialab101 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Is there any way for nodes to ignore selfish miners? And, would this have the desired effect of forcing them to include transactions in blocks?

        [–]i_wolf 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Let's have a hard limit they say. The fee market will develop they say.

        [–]Fiach_Dubh 1ポイント2ポイント  (6子コメント)

        Tragedy of the commons. Game theory suggests that all pools will begin acting in the same manor for competitive advantage, if this were a zero sum game. luckily people aren't computers.

        [–]sourdsmokin 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

        *manner btw

        [–]johnnycoin 1ポイント2ポイント  (4子コメント)

        large mining companies run by one decision makers maybe, large mining pools will lose hash rate because all miners in the pool will not support a strategy that undermines the value of the coin.

        [–]Fiach_Dubh 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

        and yet the more centralized, small and large will thrive off this strategy, taking away market share for the ones who play by the rules. It's not a killer competitive advantage, but it is a competitive advantage none the less. The value of Bitcoin is irrelevant as long as it is supported by the pools who don't turn evil. The irony of this situation is that by staying good, you are enabling the bad actors of the ecosystem. Pyramid like. This phenomenon will have negligible impact on the BTC price, thus incentivizing its use for bad actors.

        [–]johnnycoin 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

        is the benefit real or simply a theoretical one. It only can have an advantage when there is a race, so you are potentially reducing the number of orphans correct? Has there been any research into what the benefit is say over a year of such bad acting?

        [–]Fiach_Dubh 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        none yet, hopefully this will be looked into more. neat phenomenon.

        [–]smartfbrankings 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Except mining rigs are incredibly short-lived, so miners have very little long term interest in Bitcoin. They sell right away.

        Even so, if their competitors are acting in a short-term more profitable way, they will stand more to lose both short and long term.

        [–]Future_Prophecy 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/1364586789_thug_life.jpg

        [–]jeanduluoz 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

        where is the stress in this? Anyone that wants confirmation rates improved can just play a marginally second-highest fee