Topic: Would smaller blocks reduce Bitcoin energy requirements? (Read 3836 times)

The current banks take several days to settle an international transfer. Bitcoin does it in minutes. Why is Bitcoin not fast enough for you?

I'd love to, but right at the moment I'm mega-stressed about Brexit, and the weak politicians who are trying to massage it. I'm trying to sort out some videos, and I've been given hosting for a radio station.

My vision is that Bitcoin becomes the "central bank" of crypto-currencies, and that minor transactions are moved onto sidechains or other cryptos. Bitcoin could then become a store of wealth, and it could be used for house purchases and other big ticket items.

You need a project to prove this, you're obviously very determined, you talk about this alot.

Set up a testnet, where you tweak the Bitcoin client's block interval and block reward rate. Invite people to join, and develop a way of benchmarking the performance based on orphan rates (including all the forms of orphaned blocks that you speak of in this thread).

I'd be interested to see the results.

My interest in this is that I feel that a 10 minute average block generation time is inherently flawed on the modern internet. At some stage in the future, Bitcoin will have to reduce this imho. I suspect it would be easier to do this now, than to try to change things when the network and use has expanded. I believe Bitcoin will continue to grow, and needs to consider this in more fundamental ways than creating larger slow trucks when faster vehicles are needed to speed up deliveries.

Nah. Mining hardware doesn't really care how fast blocks are, nor how big they are.

Ah! Thanks, I can see that.

So if the blocks were generated faster, but were not as full, would we be worse off in respect of the aborted block generations?

Reducing the difficulty does not reduce the number of hashes computed per minute.  It just reduces the average number of hashes per block.

If you reduced the difficulty enough for an average of 5 minutes between blocks, you would need half as many hashes per block, but you'd generate twice as many blocks per day.  The end result is just as many "aborted searches".

To reduce the time interval, you would have to reduce the difficulty as I understand it. Surely with a reduced difficulty, there would be fewer aborted searches.

You will not decrease the number of aborted block searches. If I understand correctly, you are referring to the miner changing the information in the merkle root of the block they are hashing after a block is found. Since more blocks are produced per time frame, they have to abandon their current hashing block more.

The mempool size would definitely be reduced. The size of the mempool can decrease significantly; just that merchants can start asking for more confirmations.

But would it decrease the number of aborted block searches, and the mempool processing overheads?

Lowering the time increases the wasted work, both with more overhead in blocks and in more orphaned blocks.

I'd be convinced to start CPU or GPU mining on a changed PoW, Jetcash. Others may just well do the same (mining was pretty popular amongst computing enthusiasts in the early days of CPU and GPU mining, and hence far more decentralised).

You're describing it as if miners are part of the Bitcoin Corporation, who cannot lose their position/role. No such concepts exist in Bitcoin, either you've got the right hardware and running costs, or you haven't. That's all it takes to be a Bitcoin miner.

This would seem to be a fairly radical change. If this happens, would it be possible to combine it with another radical change - reduce the blocksize to 500Kb, and the generatiion interval to one minute.

How can miners be convinced to switch to this if it makes their hardware worthless.

Probably not.

The "other proof of work formula" will still require that the vast majority of work be wasted, with just as many "orphaned and aborted" attemtps.  It will just require different hardware so that the current hardware can't be used to attack the network.

I see in some other threads that people are suggesting that core may switch to a new PoW formula - isn't this what I am asking for?

and mining becomes centralised
or users migrate to systems with cheaper rates and faster confirmation times

I'm not suggesting that we have a system that is less secure. With increasing interest from globalists and the banking elite, we need to have a more secure system if anything. I'm suggesting that it is worth considering the fact that it may be possible to develop a system which has fewer wasted hashes ( abortions as well as orphans). Hopefully this thread will spark some interest in the developers.

There is an incentive structure built into bitcoin so that mining is always exactly as efficient as it needs to be.

As more energy efficient hardware is created, miners have an incentive to use the more efficient equipment since it will reduce their electricity costs. Therefore, hash power will move to the more efficient hardware, so mining is more efficient.

If the exchange rate drops, then mining isn't as profitable. The most inefficient miners shut off their equipment and the difficulty is reduced.  Less hashes are needed, so mining is more efficient.

If the block reward is reduced, then mining isn't as profitable. The most inefficient miners shut off their equipment and the difficulty is reduced.  Less hashes are needed, so mining is more efficient.

If the exchange rate increases, then the network is more valuable and needs more security.  With the increased revenue less efficient miners can afford to run hashing equipment and difficulty is increased. Mining becomes a bit more inefficient to increase security.

If transactions pay higher fees, then the users value the network more. With the increased revenue less efficient miners can afford to run hashing equipment and difficulty is increased. Mining becomes a bit more inefficient to increase security.

This incentive structure is balanced so that the exchange rate determines how much hashing is needed, and the amount of hashing determines how expensive it is to attack the network, and the cost of attacking establishes the security of the blockchain, and the security of the blockchain contributes to its perceived value, and the perceived value drives demand, and demand determines the exchange rate and with that we are back to the beginning.

As such, more efficient mining overall (less "wasted" hashes") means a less secure blockchain.  So, before you can decide how many "wasted" hashes are acceptable, you first need to decide how much security is desired.

How many were there in the first year of Bitcoin, and how many will there be in 5 years time? You don't have to eliminate all of them, just make block creation more efficient.

I don't have any solutions. I just put it forward for better minds than mine to consider the problem. If it is not addressed, then this may prevent the future development of Bitcoin.

Using this definition there are, on average, 237,345,536,820,000,000,000 aborted blocks every 10 minutes at the current difficulty.  Eliminating these would eliminate the concept of proof-of-work and would eliminate the consensus mechanism built into bitcoin.  How would you make that work?


That "thrashing about" that you are complaining about is the reason that the consensus mechanism of bitcoin works.  What would you replace it with?


Such as?

Let's assume that I do understand the mis-named "proof of work". It's actually a proof of luck - it's a proof that you got lucky and found an eligible hash. You could also consider it as a proof of processing power, or a proof of cheaper electricity than any body else. It's like a lottery, the more tickets you buy, the more chances you have of winning, but of course, having a warehouse full of tickets doesn't guarantee a win.

With regards to the way mining has developed. It seems it has moved away from the original distributed concepts. and now it seems to depend on the size of your processing capability, and your proximity and connectioins with other miners. The advances in computing for Bitcoin mining have forced many people out of mining, and have increased the investment required to find blocks. This has increased the amount of "work" that has to be done to find a lucky ticket. Any "work" that does not result in a usable product is wasted in my opinion. I am aware that this non-productive work was intended to keep the system decentralised, but we are moving to a position where this is no longer the case.

All I am asking is that people recognise that aborted blocks are as much of a waste of Bitcoin resources as orphaned blocks. Just to clarify. by aborted blocks I meant the abandoning of an attempt to find a block creating hash before the completed block can be submitted for peer acceptance.

Whilst miners are thrashing about wasting their computing power, transactions are stagnating in a pool, and users are having to wait for extended periods to gain confirmation of their transactions. Lets try to make more profitable use of that discarded computer power.

yes, this is the statistical concept of "independent trials" in action

This is the part that Jet Cash isn't catching on to.

You never make progress on a block.  You calculate a hash, and either that specific hash for that specific block header meets the target, or it doesn't.  If it meets the target, then you've solved a block and need to broadcast it before it gets orphaned.  If it doesn't meet the target, then you need a new block header, and you have to start over with a new hash.

The result of each hash is unpredictable and therefore is effectively random.  It's a bit like if you need to roll three six-sided dice together until all of them come up sixes simultaneously.  Are all the rolls that don't come up with three sixes a waste?  If you and another player are both doing the same, and I mark down a "block" every time one of you succeeds, are your failed rolls suddenly a waste if your opponent "wins" a block?  Are his rolls a waste if you then later "win" a block?

Unlike "chair manufacturing" (where you are closer to completing it after 5 minutes of work), you are never any closer to solving a block.  If the hash rate is balanced with the difficulty, then it is an average of 10 minutes until the next block will be solved.  If the whole world under that condition has been trying for 9 minutes without a bock yet, it is still an average of 10 MORE minutes until a block is solved.  If the whole world has been trying for 40 minutes without a bock yet, it is still an average of 10 MORE minutes until a block is solved.  Nobody ever makes any progress or gets any closer, but sometimes someone gets lucky and wins the NEXT block hash they try.  Meanwhile everyone else just keeps trying, knowing that the odds are that evetually they will get lucky on the NEXT bock hash they try.

The proof-of-work is NOT a proof that you found a successful hash value (unlike a chair which IS proof that you built a chair).

The proof-of-work is proof that you have calculated ON AVERAGE 237,345,536,820,000,000,000 hashes (at the current difficulty), or whatever the average number of hashes required is for any given difficulty.

Note that it doesn't prove that you ACTUALLY calculated exactly that many hashes, but it does prove in the long run that you would need to have averaged that many hashes per successful block.

When someone else soves a block, it doesn't effect the AVERAGE number of hashes you'll need to calculate before you are lucky enough to get a good one.  Regardless of whether you calculate 1 hash every 10 minutes or 237,345,536,820,000,000,000 hashes every 10 minutes, you still have a 1 in 237,345,536,820,000,000,000 chance of each hash being successful at the current difficulty.

Are you trying to imply that manufacturing chairs, or anything for that matter, is 100% energy efficient? Or 100% material efficient?


Ok, you actually don't understand proof of work, then. You may as well say that every hash that doesn't satisfy the difficulty threshold is a waste with that sort of logic.

This is a blockchain, and you can't cook a blockchain without orphaing some blocks. Orphan rate has improved over time, and that's as close to "perfect" as one can get, it's in the inherent nature of the tech.

Yes, that's it. If it doesn't create a viable end product, then it's wasted energy. An orphaned block is killed just as much as an aborted block. It's just a question of when it is killed - before or after birth. I understand the reason for a PoW chain, but is isn't just PoW - it's a function of work, speed and luck. If you are selling chairs, then your PoW is a chair, it doesn't matter if it took you a week to make your chair, and somebody else only took an hour, you both have a chair to sell. You don't have to burn your chair if you complete it five seconds after somebody else.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this concept. I just got fed up with everybody talking about orphaned blocks, and ignoring aborted blocks. Both are killed by Bitcoin, it's just a question of when they are killed - before or after birth. Either way, they are both a non-productive use of energy.

Congratulation for inventing FED 

But how about a mining method/protocol that first combines all the hash power in total and processes the transactions and reward the miners accordingly to their hash power contribution? I'm talking about a mega pool/ one pool, that way miners can still fork if needed just all the electricity will be used to secure and generate bitcoins.

So really you're arguing about the terminology. But you're not arguing about the fact that it's not a waste.


What about the suggestion that reducing the block interval would "fix" this "problem"? It would in fact make it worse, wouldn't it?

What about the suggestion that so-called aborted blocks (really unpropagated orphans) slow the network down? I'm not seeing it

I dont think so. The way I understand Jet Cash is that they call an "aborted block" a potential(!) block which the miner stopped working on when somone else already found a solution for it. A solution in terms of heigth not in terms of transactions included obviously. Thus I wouldnt see it as wasted energy. Thats like saying you wasted your energy participating in a challange you lost. You didnt know in advance you would lose it and there was a realistic chance that you could have won it. Whether this block is later orphaned or not is a different topic.

Yes, but you still don't understand orphans

No-one is making the distinction you make between orphans and abortions, and the reason is that they're the same. Your description of an aborted block is simply one way that a block can be orphaned

I understand the point of PoW. I'm just pointing out that an aborted block is just as much a waste as an orphaned block.

Ifyou are mining for gold, and you extract and process a ton of ore without finding any gold, then all that effort is wasted. The trick is to find the ore that has the greatest gold content to maximise on energy productivity and profit. If we can minimise the barren Bitcoin "ore", then we can improve the efficiency of trandsaction processing. I haven't seen anybody discuss this aspect of block generation. All they discuss is orphaned blocks, and state that abortions are part of the Bitcoin design concept. Obviously there were fewer abortions in the early days, maybe now is the time to reflect on the massive increase in abortions that is increasing mining costs and slowing the network.

Thank god someone can see this.

If you think PoW is a waste of electricity, you do not understand what PoW does or how it achieves it.




Ok, but it's not our "waste" to condemn. That electricity production infrastructure belongs, rightly or wrongly, to the Chinese communist state. If they want to waste public money subsidising that cost, that's between the Chinese Communist protection racket and their subjects, not really anyone else's business, unless it affects their way of life.

And because PRC subsidisation of electricity (for Bitcoin mining or otherwise) does not meaningfully affect those living outside that protection racket, there's not much we can say or do, practically or morally.

The electricity is used but not wasted. There is a difference between the two in this case because the collective result is clearly good and productive. But your comment does raise the matter of taxpayer-subsidized electricity found in places like, for example, China. is the "electricity used to generate blocks that are too late to make it onto the chain" wasted there?

I'm thinking that as crypto-mining in socialized economies rises, subsidized rates of electricity in those economies will fall. Which would be a good thing. What the world needs now is pricing, true pricing.

What you describe always happen. There is only 1 miner winning. Everyone else is loosing. It is part of the design.

Orphans though are real additional "cost" (wasted processsing power/electricity).

Surely itwould be no more of an altcoin than a chain that allows for 2Mb blocks.

Everybody seems to comment on orphaned blocks, and I appreciate the distress that these could cause for some miners. Nobody seems to mention the aborted blocks that occur when a miner is too late to add to the blockchain. The hash power and electricity that is used in creating these aborted blocks must be several million times that required to create the orphans.

 There would simply be more blocks that didn't make it to the chain and it wouldn't be Bitcoin anymore but some sort of altcoin.

I think you're getting this inverted. Increasing the frequency of blocks inherently increases the orphan rate, and every orphan produced is a waste of hashing, and hence, electricity from the miner's perspective.

What's the rationale for reducing the amount of energy that miners use, Jetcash?

I'm slightly out of my depth here, so please forgive me if I'm talking rubbish.

My understanding of mining is this. The process starts with a miner grabbing a bunch of transactions and hashing them into a merkel root, a bit more stuff is added and the whole lot is hashed to find a target with a suitable number of leading zeroes. When it is found, it is added to the chain if another miner hasn't got there first. If he has, then the whole process has to be started again. With smaller blocks discovered at more frequent intervals, it would appear that there would be less wasted electricity used to generate blocks that are too late to make it onto the chain.