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From: gladoscc <admin@glados.cc>
To: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Uniquely identifying forked chains
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2015 01:27:01 +1000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAL7-sS1aMqrUzMEbiQUWuxFtVHGv+-is7-BeAuje3rfQs_-JeQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAL7-sS3CaHvZxUb-Q6HagHYufYnko_T4TBoFhd31rr5OxaiAEw@mail.gmail.com>

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There has been discussion of using the genesis block hash to identify
chains in BIP 21 (bitcoin:// URI scheme). However, this does not allow
identification between blockchain forks building upon the same genesis
block. While many see this as undesirable, I think it is inevitable that
this will eventually happen at some point, and think it is best to build
systems redundantly.

I propose identifying blockchains for BIP 21 and any other relevant needs
through:

1) the genesis block hash for a new chain, or
2) a hash of the genesis block hash,  concatenated with block hash(es) of
fork point(s) for a fork chain

This would support forks, forks of forks, forks of forks of forks, etc
while preserving a fixed length chain identifier.

If a user wants to specify "whatever chain is the longest with PoW", they
would use (1). In times where multiple chains are coexisting and being
actively mined, a user can use (2) to specifically identify a chain.

Thoughts?

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       reply	other threads:[~2015-08-28 15:27 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
     [not found] <CAL7-sS2mrBqM7w5T8mRBFvVrCaHy1zT1YsgrHUxRBqdTFqczow@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found] ` <CAL7-sS3CaHvZxUb-Q6HagHYufYnko_T4TBoFhd31rr5OxaiAEw@mail.gmail.com>
2015-08-28 15:27   ` gladoscc [this message]
2015-08-28 20:15     ` [bitcoin-dev] Uniquely identifying forked chains Matt Whitlock
2015-08-28 20:45       ` Jorge Timón

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