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Topic: More blocks per week, less generated per block... Why not? (Read 1217 times)

hero member
Activity: 630
Merit: 500
10 minutes per block is more than enough time to let absolutely everything propogate through the network. Make blocks smaller in difficulty and miners will get a lot more stale shares, all bitcoin infrastructure will be a lot more dependent on who has the fastest connections etc. It's a fine balance, and I personally don't have a clue if 5 is sufficient, but I know there is a point where this kind of stuff would cause trouble.
legendary
Activity: 2058
Merit: 1431
The main reason why this isn't implemented is because it would be confusing to most people.
sr. member
Activity: 416
Merit: 277
Shopping could not be completed faster. If blocks were found twice as fast, then it would take 12 blocks for a transaction to confirm, as each block would be worth half as much.
I think if you worked the maths through carefully 12 blocks of half the difficulty would actually be somewhat more secure than 6 blocks at the current difficulty.
Similarly I think that the current scheme is more secure than 3 blocks at twice the difficulty or one block at six times the difficulty.
I think it works a little bit the same way that compound interest using the exponential function is more lucrative than effectively the same rate of simple interest. So 100% simple interest on x after 1 year gives you 2x. 50% interest half-yearly gives 2.25x. 25% quarterly gives 2.44x and the limit is e = 2.7183ish

I don't have time to justify this at the moment. Hopefully I will either revisit this topic or someone else will pick up the torch.

For the practical purposes above, the difference will be small.

ByteCoin
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 256
6 is just a certain amount of work. Sure you can make blocks be found faster, but it takes less work then. So if you want your TXs to be as secure you'd need to wait the same amount of time.
sr. member
Activity: 371
Merit: 250
Oh, thanks! Smiley

Don't know why I was treating 6 as a limit set in stone, when it is obviously relative... Tongue
administrator
Activity: 5166
Merit: 12850
Shopping could not be completed faster. If blocks were found twice as fast, then it would take 12 blocks for a transaction to confirm, as each block would be worth half as much.
sr. member
Activity: 371
Merit: 250
Would it not be better if there were more blocks found per week, but each = less generated bitcoins? As then shopping quickly could be faster - things would be confirmed more easily.
What're the technical reasons against this?

Shopping IRL using bitcoins (mobile phone), would be more safe with this, would it not?

Plese explain away my beliefs about this! Tongue
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