Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Encouraging good miners

From: Jameson Lopp <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2017 12:29:05 -0400

Bitcoin chooses the "best chain" based upon the one that has the most
cumulative proof of work behind it. Are you proposing that the cumulative
proof of work be ignored if two blocks are within a certain threshold of
each others' work and if so, the number of transactions in the block / the
size of the block should be used as a "tie breaker?"

I think this idea needs more fleshing out of exactly how it would work,
with careful consideration that adding complexity to the best chain logic
could introduce exploitable flaws.

On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 12:12 PM, Btc Ideas via bitcoin-dev <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> Add a preference for mined blocks to be the one with more transactions.
> This comes into play when 2 blocks of the same height are found. The first
> good block mined would be orphaned if it had less transactions than
> another. Optionally, have this rule apply to the current block and the
> previous one.
>
> This increases incentive for full blocks because a miner thinking the
> faster propagation of a smaller block will win him the reward, but that
> would no longer be a good assumption.
>
> I read some miners could attack a chain by mining small or empty blocks.
> This makes that a little more difficult, but they can still attack the
> chain many ways.
>
>
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