Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin Days Destroyed as block selection heuristic

From: "Jorge Timón" <jtimon@jtimon.cc>
To: Christophe Biocca <christophe.biocca@gmail.com>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin Days Destroyed as block selection heuristic
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2015 20:37:34 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CABm2gDoCecK1jk6i_bZMTRCTQUseXYugi5ntykMimzns_dxFug@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANOOu=8jT++mX_pTHrEnryJqiw3C+J3mWKL27dEkQh=rO0q_Cg@mail.gmail.com>

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On Sep 11, 2015 1:18 PM, "Christophe Biocca" <christophe.biocca@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> It's pretty obvious that Dave is suggesting an alternate tie-breaker:

I thought he was proposing a new consesnsus rule. I see, this would be just
a policy validation that everybody would be free to ignore (like the "first
seen" spend conflict tx replacement policy).

I don't see how miners would benefit from running this policy so I would
not expect them to run it in the long run (like the "first seen" spend
conflict tx replacement policy).
If miners don't use it, I don't see how users can benefit from running that
policy themselves.
They will still have to keep waiting some block confirmation to
exponentially reduce the chances of a successful double-spend attack with
each new confirmation (as explained in the bitcoin white paper).

> Mind you, that risk doesn't apply if we prefer non-empty blocks to
> empty blocks and leave it at that, or only switch if the new block
> doesn't double spend transactions in the old one, so it's a fixable
> issue.

How do you know which of 2 blocks with the same height is "newer"?

> On 11 September 2015 at 12:32, Jorge Timón
> <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Sep 11, 2015 12:27 PM, "Dave Scotese via bitcoin-dev"
> > <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Rather than (promising to, and when they don't actually, at least
> >> pretending to) use the first-seen block, I propose that a more
sophisticated
> >> method of choosing which of two block solutions to accept.
> >
> > There's already a criterion to chose: the one with more work (in valid
> > blocks) on top of it.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > bitcoin-dev mailing list
> > bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
> >

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