Bitcoin Forum

How is this possible?  https://blockchain.info/block-index/397162/000000000000005c96cd4c45b9bd96f3f75c4a94dad528bbead164f14c05a611

ffs, search before posting.

this is what i got from searching MY ADDRESS BAR:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=217559.0

Happens all the time.  There is no requirement in the protocol for miners to include transactions in a block if they don't want to.  It doesn't really matter since their block still adds to the consensus building of the blockchain.

Thats not normal..

Of course it is.

You realize there is only one r in the name of POTUS Barack Obama.

It just isn't expected, but it happens.

Thats weird

Dude.. Use search bar thanks.

Im not even sure.. wtf?

Elgius......

They get round to paying miners and owe one guy 25 BTC
so they pack it up and feed it into thier own system to be verified.

It does build the consensus about past transactions but it slows down the confirmations of new transactions.
It does not matter because miners will be incentivized more and more by bitcoin network transaction fees and by out of band value add fees.

It does slow down the confirmations eventually, but not until the next difficulty adjustment.  The increase in confirmation time only lasts for 2 weeks (until the following difficulty adjustment).

How about Slush...

It slows down unconfirmed transactions.

We need to agree on what we are discussing or we'll be talking about two different things.

If you are comparing the miner mining that empty block to that exact same miner mining blocks that aren't empty, then it is very difficult to predict if the empty block slowed down the unconfirmed transactions or sped them up.

If you are comparing the miner mining that empty block to that exact same miner simply not mining at all, then it doesn't slow down unconfirmed transactions until the next difficulty adjustment.  The increase in confirmation time then only lasts for 2 weeks (until the following difficulty adjustment).

It simply means no transactions were included in that block - it can happen!

JEZUS....
The question was about HOW weird it was.......

I gave one example of HOW it could happen, who gives a shit about slowing down confirmations, that was NOT the question and is OFF topic....
It happens a LOT...., but simply checking out the connected addresses would show what is going on... IF people took the time to research around the transaction & addresses.

Thats not very strange IMO

This is why my new proposal is required.  While this may be seen as normal in the bitcoin world, it is also identical to a DOS attack and slows down transaction confirmation times.

My new proposal is a Proof of Minimal Work rather than proof of maximum work and relies upon miners including 90% of the 'expected' transactions in each block and only allowing for a minimal variance based upon network propagation delay.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=253120.msg2693133#msg2693133

You are incorrect.


Good luck with that.

A block with no transaction being generated on a network with viable transactions represents a 10 minute DOS.

I am trying to innovate here and one would think that finding a way to keep security, enhance decentralization, and reduce power consumption all at the same time would at least merit more meaningful discussion.   

You have zero grasp of how Bitcoin works. It is not a '10 minute dos' because it absolutely affects nothing.

I just took a look in your thread. Are you seriously thinking a block takes 10 minutes? That's not how it works.

Thank you for wasting my time. With all due respect, (attempt to) learn what you are talking about.

If we went back in time and sabotaged this miner so that he didn't get a block, things would be exactly the same in the short-term. The blocks before and after this block would be created at the same times as they were here. Unconfirmed transactions wouldn't get confirmed any faster. Obviously it'd be even better if he accepted transactions instead of ignoring them, but he's not actually preventing transactions from being confirmed.

We can't even know that for certain.

If he had transactions in the block he was working on, it is entirely possible that he wouldn't have found a nonce solution before someone else (since he'd be searching for a nonce in an entirely different block with an entirely different SHA-256 hash).

So, it is entirely possible that his creation of a block without any transactions has increased the speed of confirmations.  How can we predict whether the network would have found a block sooner than they have if they were all working on a different set of blocks?

The only concern with single tx blocks would be if they were a part of a huge >50% attack where *all* new blocks appearing had only the "coinbase" tx (as this would stop other tx's from getting processed).