📅 Original date posted:2012-05-24
📝 Original message:On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Robert McKay <robert at mckay.com> wrote:
> If miners wanted to continue mining empty blocks without bothering to
> monitor the Tx pool they would just switch to stuffing the empty blocks
> with a dummy transaction of their own to get round your new rules.
Yes. This was stated in the original email.
> Once the block reward halves in a few months time then receiving
> transaction fees will probably become more important to the miner's
> profit and loss calculations and they'll spend the extra time to
> implement proper transaction processing. I suspect if we do nothing this
> particular issue will go away. Perhaps it could be helped along by
> publishing some example code to make it easier for them.
At current rates it is potentially years before that point is reached
-- years of degraded service for existing users.
> The ability to refuse transactions seems like an important part of the
> game theory of transaction pricing. Miners are supposed to be able to
> jack up transaction costs by declining to process no fee or too low fee
> (in their opinion) transactions.. the counter balance is that they are
> losing money by doing that and leaving more on the table for the next
> miner to score a block.
>
> I expect that in the future there will be other instances when people
> complain that the miners are being 'unfair' and that the rules should be
> changed in some way to lower transaction fees (ie: increase block size).
If you see a rule change, you have misunderstood the proposal.
This is an -implementation- change, which users and miners are free to
accept or reject as part of their choice of software to use in the
bitcoin ecosystem.
As such, miners continue to be free to build upon empty blocks, and
let those blocks become part of a useful chain. You would not simply
/ban/ empty blocks completely, but avoid relaying top-of-chain empty
blocks.
Mining power and network collaborate to choose the best chain at that
point -- perhaps even including those empty blocks. Clients will
continue to follow the longest, strongest chain, even after this
implementation change.
An implementation change is a soft vote of choice by the user, not a
hard requirement on all users.
> I think it should be legitimate not to publish a transaction
> to the p2p network at all.. in the future there will probably be lots of
> networks other than the p2p network.. right now we have the IPv6 network
> and the IPv4 network.. in the future there could be many other protocols
> and perhaps not all transactions will make it back to the old legacy
> ipv4 p2p network or into the mempool of bitcoin nodes on that network..
> but they should still be able to get into the block chain.
See above -- such behavior is perfectly fine.
It should be noted that out of band (OOB) TXs, transited through third
party means outside P2P network, would not cause _empty_ blocks, as
the block chain will continue to have traffic for the foreseeable
future.
OOB TXs are a great idea, too. In a hyperscaled bitcoin future, OOB
TXs might even be the norm.
--
Jeff Garzik
exMULTI, Inc.
jgarzik at exmulti.com
Jeff Garzik [ARCHIVE] /
npub1kf…f3f58
2023-06-07 10:09:29
in reply to nevent1q…ph79
Author Public Key
npub1kf0ppcjaguxekg24yx6smgxlu73qn0k8lm0t2wrqc0scpl7u3sgsmf3f58Published at
2023-06-07 10:09:29Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2012-05-24\n📝 Original message:On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 1:27 PM, Robert McKay \u003crobert at mckay.com\u003e wrote:\n\u003e If miners wanted to continue mining empty blocks without bothering to\n\u003e monitor the Tx pool they would just switch to stuffing the empty blocks\n\u003e with a dummy transaction of their own to get round your new rules.\n\nYes. This was stated in the original email.\n\n\n\u003e Once the block reward halves in a few months time then receiving\n\u003e transaction fees will probably become more important to the miner's\n\u003e profit and loss calculations and they'll spend the extra time to\n\u003e implement proper transaction processing. I suspect if we do nothing this\n\u003e particular issue will go away. Perhaps it could be helped along by\n\u003e publishing some example code to make it easier for them.\n\nAt current rates it is potentially years before that point is reached\n-- years of degraded service for existing users.\n\n\n\u003e The ability to refuse transactions seems like an important part of the\n\u003e game theory of transaction pricing. Miners are supposed to be able to\n\u003e jack up transaction costs by declining to process no fee or too low fee\n\u003e (in their opinion) transactions.. the counter balance is that they are\n\u003e losing money by doing that and leaving more on the table for the next\n\u003e miner to score a block.\n\u003e\n\u003e I expect that in the future there will be other instances when people\n\u003e complain that the miners are being 'unfair' and that the rules should be\n\u003e changed in some way to lower transaction fees (ie: increase block size).\n\nIf you see a rule change, you have misunderstood the proposal.\n\nThis is an -implementation- change, which users and miners are free to\naccept or reject as part of their choice of software to use in the\nbitcoin ecosystem.\n\nAs such, miners continue to be free to build upon empty blocks, and\nlet those blocks become part of a useful chain. You would not simply\n/ban/ empty blocks completely, but avoid relaying top-of-chain empty\nblocks.\n\nMining power and network collaborate to choose the best chain at that\npoint -- perhaps even including those empty blocks. Clients will\ncontinue to follow the longest, strongest chain, even after this\nimplementation change.\n\nAn implementation change is a soft vote of choice by the user, not a\nhard requirement on all users.\n\n\u003e I think it should be legitimate not to publish a transaction\n\u003e to the p2p network at all.. in the future there will probably be lots of\n\u003e networks other than the p2p network.. right now we have the IPv6 network\n\u003e and the IPv4 network.. in the future there could be many other protocols\n\u003e and perhaps not all transactions will make it back to the old legacy\n\u003e ipv4 p2p network or into the mempool of bitcoin nodes on that network..\n\u003e but they should still be able to get into the block chain.\n\nSee above -- such behavior is perfectly fine.\n\nIt should be noted that out of band (OOB) TXs, transited through third\nparty means outside P2P network, would not cause _empty_ blocks, as\nthe block chain will continue to have traffic for the foreseeable\nfuture.\n\nOOB TXs are a great idea, too. In a hyperscaled bitcoin future, OOB\nTXs might even be the norm.\n\n-- \nJeff Garzik\nexMULTI, Inc.\njgarzik at exmulti.com",
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