Damn it, seems like all pieces of the puzzle have been thoroughly studied and perfected up to a point where there’s about no more points of failure for Bitcoin. It’s almost like there’s a solution to any problem lol!
Topic: What happens if top 3 pools selectively accept/deny transactions? (Read 103 times)
My questions are now answered. Thanks a lot guys for your time, I understood the very basics of how pools work (I used to “mine” back in the day using my CPU but the hashrate was too high already and I think CPU wasn’t even the way to mine anymore anyway) but this was one thing I wondered.
Damn it, seems like all pieces of the puzzle have been thoroughly studied and perfected up to a point where there’s about no more points of failure for Bitcoin. It’s almost like there’s a solution to any problem lol!
Damn it, seems like all pieces of the puzzle have been thoroughly studied and perfected up to a point where there’s about no more points of failure for Bitcoin. It’s almost like there’s a solution to any problem lol!
This basically boils down to the (often asked and answered) question whether PoW 'pool centralization' is a thing, if it is an issue and whether something should be done against it.
Changing pools is a pretty easy thing for a miner to do. Miners typically have much less to lose by switching pools (at max a few $ worth of unpaid hashrate) than the operator.
On one hand, miners may want to switch pool due to the issue of principles (against censorship and such); on the other hand, if they are getting candidate blocks full of low-fee (or otherwise financially less-than-optimal) transactions, they will simply make less money than if their operator gave them highly-paying blocks.
Changing pools is a pretty easy thing for a miner to do. Miners typically have much less to lose by switching pools (at max a few $ worth of unpaid hashrate) than the operator.
On one hand, miners may want to switch pool due to the issue of principles (against censorship and such); on the other hand, if they are getting candidate blocks full of low-fee (or otherwise financially less-than-optimal) transactions, they will simply make less money than if their operator gave them highly-paying blocks.
There are a couple big pools owning the majority of the hashrate.
Bitcoin network has many mining pools, not only those big pools. Historically big pools can become small pools or disappeared just like exchanges.- Last 3 years: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/pools
- Top-10 mining pools on bitcoin network over years (2009 - May 2020). Images are broken by imgur policy changes but you can look at draw numbers.
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What happens if they suddenly decide to monetize their work even more and create some sort of subscription service where they only agree to include transactions that subscribers have broadcasted through the pool’s platform? Is this even possible?
They can prioritize transactions they want to confirm like prioritize their own transactions first. They can try to censor transactions that are not theirs but because Bitcoin network is decentralized, by hashrate decentralization in many mining pools and locations, owners, people will be free to switch their ASICs to other pools if they detect something is wrong with a big pool.If one big pool does that, I am sure with you they will become a small pool very soon.
What happens if they suddenly decide to monetize their work even more and create some sort of subscription service where they only agree to include transactions that subscribers have broadcasted through the pool’s platform? Is this even possible?
It's certainly possible - miners are free to include or exclude any transactions they wish.However, you shouldn't think of mining pools as a single entity. Large mining pools are a collection of miners belonging to hundreds or even thousands of different entities, who pool their resources in the same pool in order to smooth out their incomes. If a pool operator announced they were going to start selectively censoring some transactions, then many of the miners on that pool would simply switch to a different pool.
Further to this, let's say a pool did start only accepting transactions which were broadcasted through their own platform or paid a private fee. They would be missing out on the fees from the vast majority of transaction in the mempool, and so anyone mining on that pool would receive less income. There would be no incentive for miners to stay on that pool when they could switch to another pool and receive more income instead.
Third and last question… it it possible to mine a block without including any transaction?
A block must contain a coinbase transaction, but beyond that it can be empty.Yes it is possible, but the miner will only get the reward for block creation which is very minimal.
This is wrong. The block subsidy is currently 6.25 BTC, with the average fees being collecting from a block somewhere between 0.1 - 0.5 BTC.than just creating orphaned blocks
Your terminology is also wrong. Empty blocks are not orphans. 
1) A lot of people would stop mining at those pools. It would just kill the financial logic behind mining. If you are not accepting all transactions, you never know when you will miss out on a large fee transaction. And some people would leave because it violates the uncensored nature of bitcoin.
2) Even if it was more then the largest pools, ones that accepted all transactions would still be out there, and they would start to make more money in fees and more people would mine there and they would become larger blunting the effect even more.
3) The programming and logic behind it would probably be beyond difficult. How would you handle a CPFP if the parent is not part of the group. And 1000s of other little things.
-Dave
2) Even if it was more then the largest pools, ones that accepted all transactions would still be out there, and they would start to make more money in fees and more people would mine there and they would become larger blunting the effect even more.
3) The programming and logic behind it would probably be beyond difficult. How would you handle a CPFP if the parent is not part of the group. And 1000s of other little things.
-Dave
I think it is possible for a specific mining pool to accept or deny transaction, this can be done of the miner is contacted at the back channel. Will this affect bitcoin? Because I think for you to be under the subscription of this miners you must have to pay some fees, this is certainly something even some outside the subscription can do by just paying more for transaction fee and the pool or other miners will certainly pick it up.
Yes it is possible, but the miner will only get the reward for block creation which is very minimal. As for those which includes transactions, the transaction fee are also added to the reward which is by far more profitable to the miner than just creating orphaned blocks
Third and last question… it it possible to mine a block without including any transaction?
Yes it is possible, but the miner will only get the reward for block creation which is very minimal. As for those which includes transactions, the transaction fee are also added to the reward which is by far more profitable to the miner than just creating orphaned blocks
I was reading the other thread about mempool accelerator and this question arose in my brain. There are a couple big pools owning the majority of the hashrate. What happens if they suddenly decide to monetize their work even more and create some sort of subscription service where they only agree to include transactions that subscribers have broadcasted through the pool’s platform? Is this even possible?
If yes, does this endanger Bitcoin and what it stands for by prioritizing the rich (which are already prioritized due to the “highest fees first” policy)? Like, wouldn’t it make the “normal” users of the Bitcoin network get their transactions confirmed so much slower?
Third and last question… it it possible to mine a block without including any transaction?
If yes, does this endanger Bitcoin and what it stands for by prioritizing the rich (which are already prioritized due to the “highest fees first” policy)? Like, wouldn’t it make the “normal” users of the Bitcoin network get their transactions confirmed so much slower?
Third and last question… it it possible to mine a block without including any transaction?
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