Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Proposal: rewarding fees to next block miner

From: Eric Voskuil <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2018 15:21:48 -0800

On 01/29/2018 01:22 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 4:49 AM, Eric Voskuil via bitcoin-dev
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> I'm not sure who cooked up this myth about miners gaining advantage over
>> those who buy block space by mining empty space, rejecting higher-fee
>> transactions, and/or mining "recovery" transactions, but the idea is
>> complete nonsense.
> 
> I agree.
> 
> Steel-manning it, I guess I could argue that empty blocks are slightly
> more conspicuous and might invite retaliation especially given the
> high levels of mining centralization creates retaliation exposure. ...
> but dummy transactions are hardly less conspicuous, many nodes log now
> when blocks show up containing txn that they've never seen before.
> Moreover, inexplicably underfilled blocks are produced (e.g. by
> bitmain's antpool) and no retaliation seems to be forthcoming.

It's not clear to me what would be the reason for retaliation, given
there is no more harm in a miner purchasing a block than Coinbase
submitting enough transactions to fill a block. Both pay the market rate
for the space. But since the former results in a loss, a financial
consequence ("retaliation") is inherent.

If a farmer destroys his/her own apple crop he loses money. It may be
very conspicuous, but nobody would retaliate as only the farmer's own
property was affected. Customers would just get their apples elsewhere.
Block space created by a miner is property that belongs to the miner, it
can be sold or not sold.

e