From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from sog-mx-1.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com ([172.29.43.191] helo=mx.sourceforge.net) by sfs-ml-1.v29.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1U9Ptk-0004aA-Ai for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Sun, 24 Feb 2013 00:57:00 +0000 Received-SPF: pass (sog-mx-1.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com: domain of gmail.com designates 209.85.215.48 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.215.48; envelope-from=gmaxwell@gmail.com; helo=mail-la0-f48.google.com; Received: from mail-la0-f48.google.com ([209.85.215.48]) by sog-mx-1.v43.ch3.sourceforge.com with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.76) id 1U9Ptg-0002vu-KY for bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net; Sun, 24 Feb 2013 00:56:57 +0000 Received: by mail-la0-f48.google.com with SMTP id fq13so1645286lab.21 for ; Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:56:48 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.152.112.138 with SMTP id iq10mr5769477lab.55.1361667408268; Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:56:48 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.112.96.164 with HTTP; Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:56:48 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <20130224010651.GA22686@savin> References: <20130224010651.GA22686@savin> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:56:48 -0800 Message-ID: From: Gregory Maxwell To: Peter Todd Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Spam-Score: -1.6 (-) X-Spam-Report: Spam Filtering performed by mx.sourceforge.net. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details. -1.5 SPF_CHECK_PASS SPF reports sender host as permitted sender for sender-domain 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (gmaxwell[at]gmail.com) -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author's domain 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily valid -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature X-Headers-End: 1U9Ptg-0002vu-KY Cc: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] How small blocks make delibrate orphan mining costly 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: Sun, 24 Feb 2013 00:57:00 -0000 On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Peter Todd wrote: > In the low-subsidy future fees will be the main source of income for > miners. Thus in some circumstances large miners may even have a reason > to delibrately try to mine a block that would orphan the current best > block. A simple example would be what would happen if a 1000BTC fee tx > was created, but more realistic examples would be just due to a large > number of tx's with decent fees. It's come up a number of times in the past that when there is no subsidy we might expect slow convergence as miners try to orphan each other instead in order to fee snipe. What Peter pointed out here that I had not previously considered and find interesting is was that if there is a sufficient backlog (or nlocktime immature) of transactions with fees beyond the maximum block size the incentive to orphan blocks to take their fees is greatly reduced or eliminated.