public inbox for bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Tier Nolan <tier.nolan@gmail.com>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Hardfork to fix difficulty drop algorithm
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2016 15:54:15 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAE-z3OXjt4E9a2iMCd51=9F6v0iG0NE5JSkOvKqkeQzWewG7pg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAE-z3OUR8So2EM_EBeEerW-UPs0KY+whVB=jjFAHkW3xZPF2Hw@mail.gmail.com>

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1520 bytes --]

If a hard-fork is being considered, the easiest is to just step the
difficulty down by a factor of 2 when the adjustment happens.

This means that miners still get paid the same minting fee per hash as
before.  There isn't that much risk.  If the hashing power stays constant,
then there will be 5 minute blocks for a while until everything readjusts.

Nearly the same can be accomplished by a soft fork.

Proposal:

If 900 of the last 1000 blocks are block version X or above, then the
smooth change rule applies.

The adjustment is as follows

big_number get_new_target(int height, big_number old_target) {
    if (height < 405000)
        return old_target;
    else if (height < 420000)
        return (old_target * 15000) / (height - 390000);
    else
        return old_target;
}

What this does is ramp up the difficulty slowly from 405,000 to 420,000.
It ends up with a target that is 50% of the value stored in target bits.
These blocks are valid since they have twice as much POW as normally
required.

For block 420000, the difficulty drops by 2 and the reward drops by 2 at
the same time.  This means that miners still get paid the same BTC per
hash.  It would mean 5 minute blocks until the next adjustment though.

If 90% of the network are mining the artificially hard blocks, then a  10%
fork still loses.  The 90% has an effective hash rate of 45% vs the 10%.

It is unlikely that miners would accept the fork, since they lose minting
fees.  It effectively brings the subsidy reduction forward in time.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1897 bytes --]

  parent reply	other threads:[~2016-03-02 15:54 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 31+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-03-02 14:56 [bitcoin-dev] Hardfork to fix difficulty drop algorithm Luke Dashjr
2016-03-02 15:05 ` Pavel Janík
2016-03-02 15:14   ` Luke Dashjr
2016-03-02 15:24     ` Jérémie Dubois-Lacoste
     [not found]     ` <CAE-z3OUR8So2EM_EBeEerW-UPs0KY+whVB=jjFAHkW3xZPF2Hw@mail.gmail.com>
2016-03-02 15:54       ` Tier Nolan [this message]
2016-03-02 15:42 ` Luke Dashjr
2016-03-02 16:27   ` Paul Sztorc
2016-03-02 18:07     ` Tier Nolan
2016-03-02 19:01       ` Eric Voskuil
     [not found]         ` <56D74859.3090609@gmail.com>
2016-03-02 20:44           ` Eric Voskuil
2016-03-02 23:02         ` Peter Todd
2016-03-03  5:11           ` Dave Scotese
2016-03-03 10:14           ` Patrick Shirkey
2016-03-03 20:54           ` Eric Voskuil
2016-03-04 10:27             ` Tier Nolan
2016-03-02 15:48 ` Dave Hudson
2016-03-08 22:05   ` Bob McElrath
2016-03-09 18:30     ` Dave Hudson
2016-03-09 20:21       ` Bob McElrath
2016-03-09 23:24         ` Dave Hudson
2016-03-09 20:26       ` Paul Sztorc
2016-03-02 16:17 ` Bryan Bishop
2016-03-02 17:14 ` David A. Harding
2016-03-02 17:53   ` Gregory Maxwell
2016-03-02 19:34     ` David A. Harding
2016-03-03  1:06     ` Paul Sztorc
2016-03-09 17:58       ` Paul Sztorc
2016-03-02 18:20 ` Peter Todd
2016-03-03 18:27 ` Corey Haddad
2016-03-04  8:41   ` Henning Kopp
     [not found]     ` <CA+XQW1gfnXxxCod6cL=caGnEc66YOvaF6SJL=omUbMqwLNDP7g@mail.gmail.com>
2016-03-09 20:43       ` Paul Sztorc

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to='CAE-z3OXjt4E9a2iMCd51=9F6v0iG0NE5JSkOvKqkeQzWewG7pg@mail.gmail.com' \
    --to=tier.nolan@gmail.com \
    --cc=bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox