Re: [bitcoin-dev] Proposal: Force to do nothing for first 9 minutes to save 90% of mining energy

From: "René Pickhardt" <r.pickhardt@googlemail•com>
To: Michael Fuhrmann <fuhmic@web•de>,
	 Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
	<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Proposal: Force to do nothing for first 9 minutes to save 90% of mining energy
Date: Sun, 16 May 2021 00:14:13 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAJ5H3Z5C_Rjszb1QgGqhJa5F2_ts4CoT=1c0=efBcK8D96Svdw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <d35dee03-2d19-e80a-c577-2151938f9203@web.de>

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Hey Michael,

First I think the idea of "do nothing in the first 9 minutes" will
unfortunately not be useful as the computed work is mainly there to prevent
miners from altering the history of previous blocks. Thus following your
suggesting would probably drastically decease the security of the network
as less work protects previously mined blocks allowing for lower cost to
compute a reorg.

Let us assume the aforementioned point could somehow be resolved there
would be another practical issue. It is hard / impossible to sync clocks in
a distributed network which I think would be necessary for a system that
you propose. (actually Bitcoin is one way of introducing a temporal
ordering of events in a distributed network)

Finally even if that was also resolved: How would you prevent miners to
already compute the simpler difficulty problem directly after the block was
found and publish their solution directly after minute 9? We would always
have many people with a finished / competing solution.

So while I appreciate the idea I have the feeling it would be impractical
but maybe I missed something.

Best Rene

Michael Fuhrmann via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
schrieb am Sa., 15. Mai 2021, 23:57:

> Hello,
>
> Bitcoin should create blocks every 10 minutes in average. So why do
> miners need to mine the 9 minutes after the last block was found? It's
> not necessary.
>
> Problem: How to prevent "pre-mining" in the 9 minutes time window?
>
> Possible ideas for discussion:
>
> - (maybe most difficult) global network timer sending a salted hash time
> code after 9 minutes. this enables validation by nodes.
>
> - (easy attempt) mining jobs before 9 minutes have a 10 (or 100 or just
> high enough) times higher difficulty. so everyone can mine any time but
> before to 9 minutes are up there will be a too high downside. It is more
> efficient to wait then paying high bills. The bitcoin will get a "puls".
>
>
> I dont think I see all problems behind these ideas but if there is a
> working solution to do so then the energy fud will find it's end. Saving
> energy without loosing rosbustness.
>
>
>
> :)
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