<div dir="ltr">I was mansplaining weak blocks to my wife. She asked a simple question: <div><br></div><div>Why would I, as a miner, publish a weak block if I find one?<div><br></div><div>I don't know.</div><div><br></div><div>Sure, I will get faster propagation for my solved block, should I find one. On the other hand everybody else mining a similar block will enjoy the same benefit. Assuming that I'm not a huge miner, it's unlikely that I will actually solve the block, so I'm probably just giving away fast propagation times to someone else.</div><div><br></div><div>So how does publishing a weak block benefit the producer of it more than the other miners? Please help me understand this.</div><div><br></div><div>/Kalle Rosenbaum</div></div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2015-09-27 11:42 GMT+02:00 Tier Nolan via bitcoin-dev <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target="_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><span>On Sun, Sep 27, 2015 at 2:39 AM, Gregory Maxwell via bitcoin-dev <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" target="_blank">bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span>
</span>Unless the weak block transaction list can be a superset of the block<br>
transaction list size proportional propagation costs are not totally<br>
eliminated.<br></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div>The POW threshold could be dynamic. The first weak-block that builds on a new block could be forwarded with a smaller target.<br><br></div><div>This reduces the window size until at least one weak block is propagated. <br><br></div><div>The change in threshold could be time based (for the first 30 seconds or so). This would cause a surge of traffic when a new block once a new block has propagated, so perhaps not so good an idea.<br></div><span><div><br></div><div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
As even if the weak block criteria is MUCH lower than the block<br>
criteria (which would become problematic in its own right at some<br>
point) the network will sometimes find blocks when there hasn't been<br>
any weak block priming at all (e.g. all prior priming has made it into<br>
blocks already).<br></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div>If there is a transaction backlog, then miners could forward merkle branches with transactions in the memory pool with a commitment in the coinbase.<br></div></div></div></div>
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