Author

Topic: Why do pool operators subsidize Mt. Gox (Read 1715 times)

newbie
Activity: 52
Merit: 0
May 07, 2013, 04:44:42 PM
#4
What % of computational power is dedicated to incorporating transactions into the blockchain compared to mining new blocks?
member
Activity: 109
Merit: 10
"Free-Ride" is your claim. Can you prove they aren't contributing? You may be surprised, after crunching all of the data(not cherry picked) to see they are NOT getting a free-ride. Full disclosure: I do not care for Gox.
zvs
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 1000
https://web.archive.org/web/*/nogleg.com
I was digging into why it takes so long to get a new bitcoin client synchronized when I came across a shocking fact.

Mt. Gox pays no fees on their transactions!
 Look here, where they have moved over 5 500 000 BTC in 35 500 transactions and never paid a fee.  
https://blockchain.info/address/1LNWw6yCxkUmkhArb2Nf2MPw6vG7u5WG7q?filter=1

Why do the pool operators tolerate this?  I read here recently that Gox is making $3M / month.  They could clear afford a few mBTC for transaction fees.  And paying a fee would give them an incentive to use the blockchain efficiently.

There is an easy fix.  Blockprioritysize could be set in bitcoin.conf to a lower level forcing free transactions to wait several blocks.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

I have also commissioned Jon Steffensen to add a set of tools to Bitcoin-qt that will allow fee rules to easily set by pools and solo miners.  The branch is on git hub here.
https://github.com/jonls/bitcoin/tree/mining-tx-filters
Blockprioritysize needs to be exceeded before these rules are applied.

I don't want to get into the debate about whether transactions fees are too low or too high.  I am just saying free transactions are clearly being abused and action should be taken to make sure that free transactions have a cost in time to validation.

yeah, but pools make payouts via the same priority system
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 501
I was digging into why it takes so long to get a new bitcoin client synchronized when I came across a shocking fact.

Mt. Gox pays no fees on their transactions!
 Look here, where they have moved over 5 500 000 BTC in 35 500 transactions and never paid a fee.  
https://blockchain.info/address/1LNWw6yCxkUmkhArb2Nf2MPw6vG7u5WG7q?filter=1

Why do the pool operators tolerate this?  I read here recently that Gox is making $3M / month.  They could clear afford a few mBTC for transaction fees.  And paying a fee would give them an incentive to use the blockchain efficiently.

There is an easy fix.  Blockprioritysize could be set in bitcoin.conf to a lower level forcing free transactions to wait several blocks.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

I have also commissioned Jon Steffensen to add a set of tools to Bitcoin-qt that will allow fee rules to easily set by pools and solo miners.  The branch is on git hub here.
https://github.com/jonls/bitcoin/tree/mining-tx-filters
Blockprioritysize needs to be exceeded before these rules are applied.

I don't want to get into the debate about whether transactions fees are too low or too high.  I am just saying free transactions are clearly being abused and action should be taken to make sure that free transactions have a cost in time to validation.
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