From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from sog-mx-3.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.193] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-1.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1UaFQb-0005SX-GA for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Thu, 09 May 2013 01:13:49 +0000 X-ACL-Warn: Received: from vps7135.xlshosting.net ([178.18.90.41]) by sog-mx-3.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) id 1UaFQX-0001Kw-Uh for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Thu, 09 May 2013 01:13:49 +0000 Received: by vps7135.xlshosting.net (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 1028433CE03; Thu, 9 May 2013 03:13:40 +0200 (CEST) Date: Thu, 9 May 2013 03:13:39 +0200 From: Pieter Wuille To: Jeff Garzik Message-ID: <20130509011338.GA8708@vps7135.xlshosting.net> References: <20130508234422.GA30870@savin> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-PGP-Key: http://sipa.ulyssis.org/pubkey.asc User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-Spam-Score: -0.2 (/) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (pieter.wuille[at]gmail.com) 0.0 DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED No valid author signature, adsp_override is CUSTOM_MED -1.4 RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay domain 1.2 NML_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED ADSP custom_med hit, and not from a mailing list X-Headers-End: 1UaFQX-0001Kw-Uh Cc: Bitcoin Dev Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] 32 vs 64-bit timestamp fields X-BeenThere: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 May 2013 01:13:49 -0000 On Wed, May 08, 2013 at 09:08:34PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: > On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 9:00 PM, John Dillon > wrote: > > Perhaps Satoshi did this delibrately, knowing that at some point a hard-fork > > would be a good idea, so that we all would have a good excuse to do one? > > Guffaw :) The year 2038 is so far in the future that it is not really > relevant, from that angle. "Meh". I think it's highly unlikely we'll break the block header format, as it pretty much means invalidating all mining hardware. There's also no need: 32 bits is plenty of precision. Hell, even 16 bits would do (assuming there's never more than a 65535s (about 18 hours) gap between two blocks). Just assume the "full" 64-bit time is the smallest one that makes sense, given its lower 32 bits. -- Pieter