Topic: Empty blocks - page 5. (Read 22955 times)

Well, I stand corrected. I didn't quite understand the data since I didn't see any headings, but after examining it a little more, it seems that your pool and a few others have never found an empty block, which I find kind of surprising.

I used logic, I have not verified it. Logically, more CPU cycles to process transactions will take more time than not spending those cpu cycles to process transactions. However, I will test this and see if my theory is correct.

I do not think that such a test would be an accurate test. Since both pools use different software and are run on different servers and configurations, there are too many variables that could change those times. Instead, I will perform a test on a regtest network where I will create a mempool of 0, 10000, 50000, and 100000 transactions and compare the times it takes for the getwork and getblocktemplate commands to complete. This creates a controlled test environment and reduces other factors that could affect results.

Because it negatively impacts the network. As we have seen with SPV mining, there are issues that can occur and cause blockchain forks and weaken Bitcoin. However, I personally don't think empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block, so for transactions, it really is just like a block was found with two block rewards. It doesn't particularly mess with confirmation times and while it would be nice if those blocks included transactions, it doesn't matter (at least for me) that those transactions wait another ten minutes like they should have

HINT.

Answer - is it:

a) Greed?
b) Uncaring disregard for the Bitcoin Eco-system?
c) Shoddy coding?
d) Pure greed?
e) All of the above?

Answers on the offending pools threads please 

Man you gotta take a long look at what they are doing and what they plainly state they are doing.
I assure you I am not here bitching about it for my health. I sincerely prefer lurking and learning much more than posting and comparing.
When I see something which feels like an injustice I take a second look, and a third, and I start asking people who have earned a level of trust regarding the topic, and I read more. If you look at the threads from the Bitcoin Discussion section, the Development & Technical Discussion threads, along with the Discus Fish / F2pool thread it all adds up. Especially when the spokesperson / one of the pool operators or owners states very clearly what their intentions are. My understanding of his intent is he flat does not care about anything but his profit. Not the network, not miners (except to make himself profit) and certainly not the individuals who see this network as bigger than what profit we are making today. I said that is my interpretation but I quoted a few posts up exactly what was said regarding SPV mining and that attitude carries through to 0 or single transaction blocks, whichever way you wish to refer to it. Sure there were great reasons early in the network's life to have MT blocks, but man we have been living with a backlog of transactions and they (MT blocks) are still being submitted.

I am not a programmer and probably as close to an average Joe or closer than most of the people who have posted in this thread. There have been posts by some extremely bright and talented individuals with not only the knowledge, the skills, the experience but the right type of neutral outlook on the entire scene. They have presented information which is based in fact you can check for yourself.

It is a decision / decisions to use the software which is setup to cause the scenarios we are discussing in order to make more profit at the expense of anyone and everyone. I applaud you for taking time to consider this discussion, but I sincerely request you take a moment to consider what anyone, or even me in particular would have to gain by posting anything negative about F2pool / Discus Fish. I used them as a backup pool to my normal PPLNS pools with a tiny amount of hashrate. It is through reading the aforementioned areas of this forum, following events unfolding over the past few weeks along with spending months of reading and watching videos from any bitcoin source of information I can find on the net.

If you take a few minutes and look at bitcoin.org and read through some of the conversations here and other places I am sure you will see these actions have negatively impacted the network. Once I saw the motive, I suspected, once I saw the action that morning of the 4th I saw the crime, and once I straight up asked in their thread and they told me well it did not take much more for me to understand that these people do not care if their actions negatively impact the network. They care if it profits them today.

I read F2pool lost 5% of their hash over the fork so you may think they would pay attention to such a loss, no. They have a system in play and the SPV mining will never stop because it leads to a higher success rate which in turn attracts more miners who are not familiar with their practices. 0 - 1 transaction blocks also lead to a higher success rate due to propagation times. The world isn't fair, but there is a right and wrong.

At some point you have to ask yourself the most simple question... if spv mining and 0-1 transaction blocks lead to a higher success rate without having a negative impact on the network and its users / miners why wouldn't every pool do it?

This is exactly the kind of misinformation spread by the pools responsible that we have proven is bullshit on this thread. It is NOT every pool mining empty blocks as has been stated over and over again on this thread. Nor do they HAVE to mine empty blocks to be fast on block changes. It is their choice of software and how they configure it at fault.

Well firstly, not every pool.
See the statistics posted.

Secondly, where did you come up with
Have you verified this to be relevant?

It's a simple test to run 2 cgminers and compare 2 pools and see if it is relevant or not ...

As I have stated many times, my pool averages block changes FASTER than Eligius but also NEVER skips getting available transactions from the mempool ... ... ...

What pool do you want them to mine with then? Every pool that I know of mines empty blocks. It is simply part of mining. Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does. They lose time and money by creating only full blocks. For receiving an extra 0.1-0.2 BTC every so often, it doesn't make much sense to most pool operators and miners.

I always try to stay on topic, but if I have the opportunity I am blasting what these pools are doing.

I have sold some S3s to a couple of acquaintances who have really been getting in the coin scene but I told them if I catch them supporting pools who do not use common sense for the community I will break in their house and steal them back!
Heh, obviously I would not go to that extreme, but the average 'Joe' who only cares about his / her own btc income simply hasn't been taught the error of their ways.

Of course it is easy to be uncaring behind a keyboard. If people take the time to read about what has transpired with all of the scams in bitcoinland since inception they will see a clear picture of the human psyche.
Not to get too far off topic here, but this is why we avoid religion and politics at meetings and parties, because people like to hide behind the facade of helping themselves. At what cost to others, and are you truly doing such by mining at Discus Fish or Antpool?
I am all for making a profit. I am all against doing something which will cause harm to the network. It is something akin to the great pyramids, or other natural wonders which has been achieved by the human race and you should each hold yourself to a higher standard.

When I was a little child I remember imagining my life was a movie the world was watching, every minute of every day. Then years later there was a real movie made called Truman? I think it was, Truman. As a child I simply thought about what an interesting thing it would be to pop in on different people and see what they were really like. As I grew and saw the movie it brought out many of the bad things which could possibly come of it, but real life, well it is much worse than either experience could have ever let me think about. My imagination has been outplayed many times by real life and seeing the choices people make.

I am far from a saint, and would love to make more coin, fiat, gold, silver, you name it.
I also want that movie of my life to replay and show mostly good things. I wish they had all been great choices but eh, I am human. Making the same choice day after day after day, after seeing proof of harming other people, other people's creations, or knowingly causing any sort of true harm for a bit of greed simply isn't worth it.

Back to politics and religion, I don't pretend to be a programmer, know what happens in the next world, or who the first President of the World will be, but I know that I don't want to go to bed tonight with the thought I made someone else hungry because I manipulated a system for a few bucks.

 I think F2pool and Antpool are black holes which need to be closed and I just hope the network and all of us are around to see it happen.
I also think if the people posting in this thread talk about these two subjects enough they can get through to some average joes. Anything is possible. You guys are smart enough to make a 'legal' way to attract their miners!

That's the key, the only way to get pools to care is to stop mining to them.

Really, pools that do care [about the bitcoin network] already don't mine empty blocks.  The ones that are only in it for a quick buck stick out like a sore thumb.

As the block reward halves and transactions become a more significant proportion of the income they will need a different approach but for the time being the transaction rewards add only a little, though it's getting more every day. In a year when the reward is only 12.5 BTC, then the current transaction rewards of .25+ will regularly amount to 2%. It can only but rise with time, but not soon enough for the existing pools to give a shit about their empty blocks if people keep mining there.

Unfortunately, the average Joe probably won't care one way or the other.  He's going to get his BTC payout for mining on f2pool, AntPool, whatever pool, and will continue to mine there unless those payments fail to get to his wallet.  Furthermore, the people on the side of the argument that even empty blocks secure the blockchain aren't helping matters any.  It's almost too bad that there's any BTC awarded for finding a block.  Those pools would change their tunes very quickly if they got nothing from finding a block.  You can bet they'd stuff every transaction they could into a block.

This! Well said sloopy. It's the averge joe/noob that needs to be made aware of what is going on.

F2Pool will continue to mine empty blocks, spv mine, or anything else which they think gives them even the slightest advantage.
They are making the coin while it can be made no matter what it takes to do so.
Greed, she is evil and she will not be comforting when Mrs. Karma comes to play.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think either of the other ones (antpool) are any better. They don't say peep about it, and just keep doing it.

None of them care about bitcoin in any way, unless it serves their wallet.

Unless someone puts together a simple, coherent explanation the regular Joe's will not get it, and that's the ones who would care. So many wouldn't...

...and don't get me wrong. I would thoroughly love seeing some of these choices backfire in a big way.

To see how well the network coped with the recent "stress tests" I ran the numbers again, from block 364145 until the most recent one: 365138.  The following screenshot is pretty telling:



The most recent block in the list, found by f2pool was indeed an empty block.  There are around 20,000 unconfirmed transactions.

Here it is, showing a correlation between one tx blocks per week and blocks per week - although you'd seem similar for the relationship between orphan blocks per week and blocks per week too.

I'm not sure that helps much.

Hrmm, either of the best pools you mean? 

I had to leave some out just to make room. Sorry. I was actually tempted to leave out all the pools that had no 1 tx blocks, but then you  wouldn't be able to see how many were making them and how many weren't.

You left the best pool of all out of your graph

Ah, gotcha. So we're comparing blocks per unit time and empty blocks, by block maker.

Strictly speaking, with stratum mining the "load" is proportional to the number of miners, not the absolute hashrate but hashrate is a surrogate marker of number of miners.

Why would mbp do 1 transactions block??

Why's that?