blocksize solution: longest chain decides - page 4.

Panthers52

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Quote from: jonald_fyookball on September 03, 2015, 10:37:27 PM

I don't quite understand the chain with the most work point you bring up.
I thought measure of work is based on the difficulty of the hash, which
has nothing to do with how many transactions are in the block.

You are correct, the measure of work is based on the difficulty of each block that is contained in the blockchain.

If the network consensus was that 5 MB blocks are valid, and a pool were to mine 3 consecutive 4.5 MB blocks, these blocks were to properly propagate throughout the network, then all nodes that are in receipt of these blocks should mine on top of the 3rd 4.5 MB block received. Under your proposal, a miner could ignore those blocks if they arbitrary thought those blocks was too large and could start mining on top of a chain that is not the most cumulatively difficult chain

jonald_fyookball

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Thanks for the reply Panthers.

In my vision, there could be consensus of the blocksize limit but
it would not be hardcoded. It can be changed when mining power
decides to change it, thereby eliminating those confirmation issues.

I don't quite understand the chain with the most work point you bring up.
I thought measure of work is based on the difficulty of the hash, which
has nothing to do with how many transactions are in the block.

Panthers52

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This would result in uncertainty regarding if a transaction is confirmed or not. As it stands now if a transaction has one confirmation, it is all but certain that the transaction will make it into the "final" blockchain with virtually zero chances of it being double spent. Under your proposal, a transaction with even 2-3 (or more) confirmations would have the possibility of a double spend.

This would also result in miners not knowing which block to build on top of. It would be possible that there would be 2-3 branches that various mining pools are attempting to build on top of that are 1-3 blocks deep.

This would create incentives not to mine because of the uncertainty regarding if a block that follows what the miner believes to be are all the rules could get orphaned even if the block is able to propagate fully throughout the network.

Lastly and most importantly, this would violate one of Bitcoin's core principals that the chain with the most work is the valid chain.

jonald_fyookball

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I understand the block limit is an anti spam measure,
but why can't miners just form their own consensus of
how big a block is acceptable? If more than 51% of the
mining power agrees a block is too big, they will ignore
it and build a longer chain.

We might have more reorgs but what's wrong with this
idea?

The main idea behind this is that actually, having a blocksize
limit was a temporary measure and in fact should not
be a protocol rule at all. That's why we are having so much
difficulty. We are trying to form consensus on implementation,
rather than the core rules.

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