Topic: Block creation will eventually become more stable and predictable - page 2. (Read 2468 times)

That's true. They will happen. I am happier about many fewer occasions.


This statement makes this kind of assumption for example: 'It is worth it to mine after one minute of the previous block being found.' If this assumption is true, then it will be twice as 'worth it' after an additional minute. After ten minutes, finding a block would then be worth ten times as much as the effort put in. This is not a stable situation- many more people would start mining and the benefit of mining would drop until your assumption becomes not true.

They obviously won't do it manually. Their mining software will do it.

Nothing in your post refutes what I have said.

The effect will exist, but its strength will be less than you describe because:

1. Depending on the mechanisms that will be put in place to ensure inclusion in a block is a scarce resource, even after a block is found there will still be plenty of fees in the next.
2. Unless there's something else to compute, the decrease in profitability will have to be significant to pause mining, to avoid thermal cycles.
3. Some people just won't care enough about this to pause mining.
4. Even if the numbers are as you describe, instead of exp(10) we'll have 5+exp(5), which still leaves plenty of room for longer than average blocks.


They had better. But it's possible that in the future proof-of-work will be augmented with things like proof-of-stake so not a lot of mining will be necessary.

Yes.

We're hoping Bitcoin will succeed, which will inevitably cause its price to increase.


These days there are things called "computers" which can automatically halt the mining when a new block is found.

Propagating a block is supposed to take a minute tops. And this is completely irrelevant to the OP's point - people will mine on the old block, but if they find something their block will be invalid. Thus the finding of valid blocks will slow down.

He didn't say it will be completely predictable, only that it will be more predictable because it will no longer be a homogenous Poisson process.

Did you read the post? He explained exactly why this will change.

I think it would be easier to lower the target time to like 5 or 3 minutes.

I have a book for you to read. Fooled by Randomness. It is aout trading ,but it is about how people have no clue about statistics.

> So after a block is found, mining would stop for several minutes and then quickly start back up again 3 to 6 minutes later.

Yes. Like thousands of miners are on the computer turnin thigns off aftera block is found.

Here is what goes on:

* It takes time for a block and work to go through the network, and miners to pick up new work. not everyone uses long poll, but even then there is a lot of communication - so once a block is found, a lot of miners still work on outdated data and get no shares.
* Block creation will never stabilize and  be predictable because it is RANDOM. One block per 6 minutes is AVERAGE. The variance is quite high.
* And yes, you have fluctuations of hashing power, but it is not because a block is found, more because of weather and people tuning off stuff at certain times, people not able to sleep with a mining rig running in their room, but mining during the day. THIS will no change, although at one point other people may be more dominant running data centers.

There are plenty of miners out there that don't pay for power and hence won't care about whether the block is full or not.

That's beyond the fact that I don't see transaction fees funding things very well at all, unless the network forces higher fees or the price of bitcoin goes up a lot.

I was sitting waiting patiently, a whole hour, for a new block to be found and watching this chart when it occurred to me that the irregular creation of blocks will eventually become much more regular.

Right now, miners are motivated by the 50 bitcoin reward and hardly at all by the fees, although those are nice too. In the future when there is little reward and high fee income, it will not be worth the electricity cost to mine shortly after a block is found because the number of transactions will be low and will take time to accumulate. After several minutes (less than ten) it would become worth the cost to mine for the fees. The result is that almost all miners individually, acting rationally, would stop mining after a block is found and simply go about routing and keeping track of transactions until enough fees accumulate to warrant the electricity to search for a block. Then they would all start again.

So after a block is found, mining would stop for several minutes and then quickly start back up again 3 to 6 minutes later.¹ The difficulty would take this behavior into account so that finding a block after those couple minutes will be easier and the ten minute average would remain. No more would we get 2 blocks right next to each other² which would mean fewer times, like pictured above, when an hour goes by without a confirmation.

And the best part is that we don't have to do anything to make it happen! Yay!


1: 3 to 6 minutes is a guess but it would definitely be less than ten.
2: And if there is, it would only be because other miners weren't aware of the new block which means that the block chain is split. One of the two blocks will be orphaned which means that it effectively was never found in the first place.