Miners profit from the fees staying high and the Bitcoin wallet estimating the traffic is heavy.
Empty blocks, with block rewards, are smart when it causes people to pay 10x to 25x the "normal" fee for confirmation within the next block.
It's the reverse of Pool Hopping basically, but against the network users rather than the miners this time.
No.
Miners profit from the fees staying high and the Bitcoin wallet estimating the traffic is heavy.
Empty blocks, with block rewards, are smart when it causes people to pay 10x to 25x the "normal" fee for confirmation within the next block.
So they're increasing network congestion in an attempt to increase the fees? That seems a bit extreme, especially since higher fees in the next block could go to another pool. Does this happen often, or only when the network activity is higher than usual (say because the price is up considerably for the day)?
No.
So they're increasing network congestion in an attempt to increase the fees?
I don't know, but it certainly feels that way to me. I believe they contribute to the congestion as well.
Perhaps, but perhaps the pools are in on it together? Seems like the most profitable for every one mining and there aren't very many that need to agree.
No. Unlikely.
Empty blocks occur because miners start mining the next block
immediately after receiving a new block, and they don't wait to process the new block and gather the transactions for the next block. However, once the miner is ready, they will switch to mining a full block -- they don't want to miss out on the transaction fees.
A miner that gives up transaction fees effectively gives that revenue to other miners, so there is unlikely to be collusion because miners that are not colluding would take all the fees from those that are. Also, it doesn't happen very often.
