<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On 14 August 2015 at 16:48, Jakob Rönnbäck </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target="_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>14 aug 2015 kl. 16:20 skrev Anthony Towns <<a href="mailto:aj@erisian.com.au" target="_blank">aj@erisian.com.au</a>>:</div><br><div><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:monospace"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On 14 August 2015 at 11:59, Jakob Rönnbäck </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target="_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">What if one were to adjust the difficulty (for individual blocks) depending on the relative size to the average block size of the previous difficulty period? (I apologize if i’m not using the correct terms, I’m not a real programmer, and I’ve only recently started to subscribe to the mailing list)<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div style="font-family:monospace">That would mean that as usage grew, blocksize could increase, but confirmation times would also increase (though presumably less than linearly). That seems like a loss?</div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote>Would that really be the case though? If it takes 5% to find a block, but it contains 5% more transactions would that not mean it’s the same? That would argue against the change if not for the fact that the blocks will be bigger for the next difficulty period.</div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">If you're waiting for one confirmation, something like that works -- you might from 95% chance of 10 minutes 5% chance of 20 minutes to 100% chance of 10m30s. But if you want 144 confirmations (eg) you go from 95% chance of 1 day, 5% chance of 1 day 10 minutes; to 100% chance of 1 day 72 minutes.<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </span></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div style="font-family:monospace">If you also let the increase in confirmation time (due to miners finding harder blocks rather than a reduction in hashpower) then get reflected back as decreased difficulty, it'd probably be simpler to just dynamically adjust the max blocksize wouldn't it?</div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><div>I guess that could make the difficulty fluctuate a bit depending on the amount of transactions and the fees being paid. Would it really matter in the long run though? Since it’s the same amount of miners, doesn’t that just mean it’s just the number that is lower, not the actual investment needed to mine the blocks? Not sure if this would open up some forms of attacks on the system for someone willing to lose money though…</div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">Once blocksizes had normalised as much larger than 1MB with a corresponding higher average hashrate, a bad actor could easily mine a raft of valid empty/small blocks at the minimum hash rate and force a reorg (and do doublespends, etc).</div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">Cheers,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">aj</div></div></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div>Anthony Towns <<a href="mailto:aj@erisian.com.au" target="_blank">aj@erisian.com.au</a>></div>
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