While it may not be the case today, in the past it was not uncommon for there to be periods of no transactions on the network [look at the first 30k blocks]. If the network refused to process blocks without a transaction, people would be forced to just insert dummy transactions in order to keep the block rate moving in proportion to the hash power of the network. Otherwise, the difficulty could plummet as a result of low network activity, rather than low hash power.
Even today it is the case that 0 transaction blocks can come about due to -extremely- close blocks on the network. However, eliminating these short blocks will end up offsetting the average block rate. A 0-5 second block on the network smooths out the average when we have the occasional 1-hour without a block period.
So it's really two reasons that I see:
1) If 0-tx blocks were stopped, people would just send append a 0-fee transaction to their own blocks, which just wastes space in the chain.
2) If 0-tx blocks were stopped, the network difficulty would be slanted towards a higher difficulty than necessary [even if its not a major impact].
Topic: Why do we allow zero transaction blocks? - page 2. (Read 4452 times)
If you made a rule that blocks had to have transactions well people could just make a dummy transaction sending 1 satoshi to themselves.
As the block subsidy declines and transaction fees become more important the "problem" will correct itself. No need for the protocol to enforce it.
As the block subsidy declines and transaction fees become more important the "problem" will correct itself. No need for the protocol to enforce it.
I was wondering how come a block with no transaction other than mining reward is a valid block. Is there a technical advantage?
Example:
http://blockexplorer.com/block/000000000000042f7c236a243e2d84bec12210dd2dd5abbeaaf55024898ac70f
Example:
http://blockexplorer.com/block/000000000000042f7c236a243e2d84bec12210dd2dd5abbeaaf55024898ac70f
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