[Bitcoin-development] Difficulty adjustment / time issues

[Christian Decker]

Am I the only one to think putting pools at a disadvantage is actually
desirable?
Back when pools started to appear we all had huge reservations about putting
so much control into the hands of a few pool operators, but nowadays it
seems that having pool operators control a vast majority of the
computational power is desired.
I do like pools (I use them myself), but we should put the security of the
protocol in first place and then only think about individual players.
Always remember that the problems pool operators encounter are likely also
the ones of a potential attacker that tries to accumulate 50%+ of the
network power :-)

Regards,
Chris
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Luke-Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:

> On Wednesday, September 14, 2011 10:45:36 AM Gavin Andresen wrote:
> > The block timestamp rules currently give HOURS of wiggle-room for
> > timestamps. We can't change those rules without risking a chain split.
>
> And those hours of wiggle-room are not enough to cause a problem.
> The problem only comes in (AFAIK) when the existing rules are *not*
> enforced.
>
> > Assuming a majority of pools/miners adopt the "discourage blocks with
> > stale timestamps" rule, that should squash any incentive for cartels
> > to try to start playing with difficulty-- you would have to have 50+%
> > power to start, or you risk producing mostly orphan blocks.
>
> As this is against pools/miners' interests, and doesn't seem to solve any
> real
> problems, I'm going to discourage its adoption if it ever gets done.
>
>
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