If decreasing the reward time results in an increase in orphaned blocks how have alt coins that have a quicker reward time (such as LiteCoin) handled the problem or have they? Is there no solution and "10 minutes" is the best compromise we can achieve as a balance? If handling orphaned blocks is the ONLY technical issue (and while acknowledging the consensus issue common to any fork proposal as we are witnessing) then how does that technical challenge compare with the others of current block size increase proposals? They all have some pros and cons. Are there any other "cons" to decreasing the reward time (while keeping the total reward the same as currently allowed and the blockchain size the same)?
Topic: Is a reduced reward time possible? - page 2. (Read 3068 times)
http://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/downloads/subchains.pdf
"Subchains" are just blocks mined lower than the normal difficulty target and then when the previous difficulty happens to get mined you call it a "strong block". (See Page 3 "Subchains")
It's no different than if I said we should increase the amount of transactions we can accept on the blockchain by, for example, decreasing the difficulty target by 10 times (Mining blocks at a target of every 1 minute) and then saying we have "strong blocks" when we happen to hit the more difficult target every roughly 10 minutes.
This doesn't do anything to solve the problems inherent with increased block size or faster blocks - Higher resource usage, particularly bandwidth, and orphaning- regardless of your unbacked and contradictory claims, see below.
"Subchains" are just blocks mined lower than the normal difficulty target and then when the previous difficulty happens to get mined you call it a "strong block". (See Page 3 "Subchains")
It's no different than if I said we should increase the amount of transactions we can accept on the blockchain by, for example, decreasing the difficulty target by 10 times (Mining blocks at a target of every 1 minute) and then saying we have "strong blocks" when we happen to hit the more difficult target every roughly 10 minutes.
This doesn't do anything to solve the problems inherent with increased block size or faster blocks - Higher resource usage, particularly bandwidth, and orphaning- regardless of your unbacked and contradictory claims, see below.
Quote from: Peter R
In a scenario where subchains are the standard mechanism to build and propagate blocks, a miner can include all of the subchain’s transactions—and thus all of its fees—without incurring additional orphaning risk
Quote from: Peter R
A miner does, however, incur orphaning risk for the new transactions included in his Δ-block.
We can accomplish something similar with subchains, which can be implemented without a hard or soft fork. The reward time would remain at 10 minutes, but each block would be composed of a series of faster-verifying weak blocks.
A Visual Explanation of Subchains
Subchains are a practical application of "weak blocks," which add security to zero-confirmation transactions and permit massive scaling of Bitcoin.
Fig. 1. Each time a block that satisfies the weak target is found, the subchain is extended. When a block satisfying the strong target is found, the subchain is closed, becoming a strong block, and a new subchain begins.
Fig. 2. Miners cooperate to build subchains in order to process more transactions and claim more fees without incurring additional orphaning risk. This illustration visualizes "idealized" ¼-difficulty subchains (also referred to as 4x subchains). In practice, each strong block may contain more or less than four weak blocks, due to randomness.
Fig. 3. Miners build subchains layer by layer (a – c), where each layer corresponds to the solution of a weak block. To propagate blocks (weak or strong), miners need only send their Δ-block and a reference to the subchain’s tip (f), reducing the quantity of transmitted bytes. When a nonce that satisfies the strong target is found, the subchain is closed thereby becoming a strong block (d), and miners begin working on a new subchain (e).
For further reading, please refer to "Reduce Orphaning Risk and Improve Zero-Confirmation Security With Subchains."
A Visual Explanation of Subchains
Subchains are a practical application of "weak blocks," which add security to zero-confirmation transactions and permit massive scaling of Bitcoin.
Fig. 1. Each time a block that satisfies the weak target is found, the subchain is extended. When a block satisfying the strong target is found, the subchain is closed, becoming a strong block, and a new subchain begins.
Fig. 2. Miners cooperate to build subchains in order to process more transactions and claim more fees without incurring additional orphaning risk. This illustration visualizes "idealized" ¼-difficulty subchains (also referred to as 4x subchains). In practice, each strong block may contain more or less than four weak blocks, due to randomness.
Fig. 3. Miners build subchains layer by layer (a – c), where each layer corresponds to the solution of a weak block. To propagate blocks (weak or strong), miners need only send their Δ-block and a reference to the subchain’s tip (f), reducing the quantity of transmitted bytes. When a nonce that satisfies the strong target is found, the subchain is closed thereby becoming a strong block (d), and miners begin working on a new subchain (e).
For further reading, please refer to "Reduce Orphaning Risk and Improve Zero-Confirmation Security With Subchains."
I realize any change to the protocol requires consensus and that is what is what is going on about the block chain size now. I wasn't aware of the orphaned block issue as I never mined so thanks for that. Too bad there wasn't some way to reduce that at the same time as reducing the reward time as it seems doing so would solve other issues as well. It would also reduce confirmation time to five minutes as well.
How do "faster" altcoins solve the orphaned block problem? Litecoin generates blocks in half the time as what I am asking about?
Technically? Sure.
Realistically? Nope. Not going to happen. It would require consensus from an overwhelming majority of all users and miners. Miners aren't going to voluntarily choose to have more of their blocks orphaned, just to increase the number of transactions that they can confirm per hour. If they wanted a hard fork to get more transactions per hour, there are plenty of other ways to do it.
Yes.
There'd be a lot more orphaned blocks.
How do "faster" altcoins solve the orphaned block problem? Litecoin generates blocks in half the time as what I am asking about?
I was just curious if the reward time could be reduced from every ten minutes (targetted) to every 5 minutes
Technically? Sure.
Realistically? Nope. Not going to happen. It would require consensus from an overwhelming majority of all users and miners. Miners aren't going to voluntarily choose to have more of their blocks orphaned, just to increase the number of transactions that they can confirm per hour. If they wanted a hard fork to get more transactions per hour, there are plenty of other ways to do it.
As a thought experiment, if this process had been applied to the last reward halving 3 1/2 years ago would we be having this blocksize debate today?
Yes.
And if it had been applied then, how would it have affected mining since that time?
There'd be a lot more orphaned blocks.
I was just curious if the reward time could be reduced from every ten minutes (targetted) to every 5 minutes
Technically? Sure.
Realistically? Nope. Not going to happen. It would require consensus from an overwhelming majority of all users and miners. Miners aren't going to voluntarily choose to have more of their blocks orphaned, just to increase the number of transactions that they can confirm per hour. If they wanted a hard fork to get more transactions per hour, there are plenty of other ways to do it.
As a thought experiment, if this process had been applied to the last reward halving 3 1/2 years ago would we be having this blocksize debate today?
Yes.
And if it had been applied then, how would it have affected mining since that time?
There'd be a lot more orphaned blocks.
I was just curious if the reward time could be reduced from every ten minutes (targetted) to every 5 minutes as a way to increase the blocksize? Of course the reward would be reduced by half also so that the total bitcoins being created would remain the same. If so, wouldn't this be another way of increasing the "blocksize" throughput? If a reward was issued every 5 minutes then a new block would be started every five minutes instead of every ten. And, if this process of halving the reward time (and reward) was perpetuated through the lifetime of bitcoin (meaning every time the reward was halved every four years the reward time was also cut in half) then the block size would be doubled at every halving as well?
As a thought experiment, if this process had been applied to the last reward halving 3 1/2 years ago would we be having this blocksize debate today? I think not. And if it had been applied then, how would it have affected mining since that time?
As a thought experiment, if this process had been applied to the last reward halving 3 1/2 years ago would we be having this blocksize debate today? I think not. And if it had been applied then, how would it have affected mining since that time?
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