Empty blocks

[drakoin]

The chain had tens of thousands of empty blocks in the beginning.

What if you ignore the chain before 2015 (and/or 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011) ...

How many empty blocks are there this year

546

I used your
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2rt64pt6hyhr41b/btc_stats.zip?dl=0
and deleted all blocks until before block 336861 (2015-01-01 00:02:52),
and then did a =COUNTIF(B1:B27284, 1)

546 / 27284 = 2.0%

- and who mined them?

[1714897051]

1714897051

[1714897051]

1714897051

[drakoin]

The chain had tens of thousands of empty blocks in the beginning.
What if you ignore the chain before 2015 (and/or 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011) ...
How many empty blocks are there this year - and who mined them?

Partial answer to that is already in this thread ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1085800.msg11593801#msg11593801 ), or you could divine it from jonny's dataset ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1085800.msg11584786#msg11584786 ).
Updated for blocks in 2015 up to block 365,401:

Keep in mind that this data on its own isn't very interesting without also looking at e.g. block times and sizes.

Ah thanks, very good.

I wanted to see who are the freeriders who are
devaluing the PoW of those who are including transactions

(which -as far as I understand it- was Satoshi's concept,
to actually include transactions into mined blocks ...)

Keep in mind that this data on its own isn't very interesting without also looking at e.g. block times and sizes.

I don't believe that the mempool was empty
when they mined those 71+272+53+150 blocks.

megabigpower,
antpool,
kncminer, and
discussfish

are so far above the average with their number of
coinbase-only blocks that it might be safe to say
that they a sabotaging the Bitcoin PoW deliberately?

[-ck]

megabigpower,
antpool,
kncminer, and
discussfish

are so far above the average with their number of
coinbase-only blocks that it might be safe to say
that they a sabotaging the Bitcoin PoW deliberately?

They're not trying to sabotage PoW deliberately. It's just that most of them use the same software that takes the same shortcut to cope with its lack of scalability by building transaction free blocks first every time and what you're seeing is the larger the pool, the more that scalability problem becomes pronounced thereby mining more transaction free blocks.

[TheRealSteve]

It's not so much about whether the mempool was empty (not sure there if there's been a time recently where that is even true, but I don't collect that data), but about how these pools mine.  You should probably read through this thread and a few related ones, also over on reddit.  The tl;dr is that depending on how the pool is set up, seeing coinbase-only blocks mined is to be expected as part of a short term revenue-maximizing strategy.  Should take a page out of ckpool's book
Now if they consistently decided to mine coinbase-only blocks, that'd be more troubling.  I'm very slightly curious what's up with BTCChina's relatively large number of 2-transaction blocks, though
( There's also a few bumps at other powers of 2 - mostly from megabigpower, which I already knew about; https://i.imgur.com/76kZa1W.png  - but 2 exactly stands out. )

[p3yot33at3r]

megabigpower,
antpool,
kncminer, and
discussfish

are so far above the average with their number of
coinbase-only blocks that it might be safe to say
that they a sabotaging the Bitcoin PoW deliberately?

They're not trying to sabotage PoW deliberately. It's just that most of them use the same software that takes the same shortcut to cope with its lack of scalability by building transaction free blocks first every time and what you're seeing is the larger the pool, the more that scalability problem becomes pronounced thereby mining more transaction free blocks.

Not sure how I missed this info - very interesting. For the record, as well as the benefit of those who are unaware:

Is it safe to say that the worst offenders are all using the same software?

What software is it?

Who built/is responsible for it?

Do you know if they will address the issue?

[organofcorti]

This is interesting. Data has been kernel smoothed against blocks solved, but plotted against time.

[-ck]

This is interesting. Data has been kernel smoothed against blocks solved, but plotted against time.

Cool. Look for a correlation between percentage of empty blocks and hashrate.

[organofcorti]

This is interesting. Data has been kernel smoothed against blocks solved, but plotted against time.

Cool. Look for a correlation between percentage of empty blocks and hashrate.

Why's that?

[valkir]

Why would mbp do 1 transactions block??

[-ck]

Cool. Look for a correlation between percentage of empty blocks and hashrate.

Why's that?

It's just that most of them use the same software that takes the same shortcut to cope with its lack of scalability by building transaction free blocks first every time and what you're seeing is the larger the pool, the more that scalability problem becomes pronounced thereby mining more transaction free blocks.

Strictly speaking, with stratum mining the "load" is proportional to the number of miners, not the absolute hashrate but hashrate is a surrogate marker of number of miners.

[organofcorti]

Cool. Look for a correlation between percentage of empty blocks and hashrate.

Why's that?

It's just that most of them use the same software that takes the same shortcut to cope with its lack of scalability by building transaction free blocks first every time and what you're seeing is the larger the pool, the more that scalability problem becomes pronounced thereby mining more transaction free blocks.

Strictly speaking, with stratum mining the "load" is proportional to the number of miners, not the absolute hashrate but hashrate is a surrogate marker of number of miners.

Ah, gotcha. So we're comparing blocks per unit time and empty blocks, by block maker.

[kano]

You left the best pool of all out of your graph

[organofcorti]

You left the best pool of all out of your graph

Hrmm, either of the best pools you mean? 

I had to leave some out just to make room. Sorry. I was actually tempted to leave out all the pools that had no 1 tx blocks, but then you  wouldn't be able to see how many were making them and how many weren't.

[organofcorti]

This is interesting. Data has been kernel smoothed against blocks solved, but plotted against time.

Cool. Look for a correlation between percentage of empty blocks and hashrate.

Here it is, showing a correlation between one tx blocks per week and blocks per week - although you'd seem similar for the relationship between orphan blocks per week and blocks per week too.

I'm not sure that helps much.

[jonnybravo0311]

To see how well the network coped with the recent "stress tests" I ran the numbers again, from block 364145 until the most recent one: 365138.  The following screenshot is pretty telling:



The most recent block in the list, found by f2pool was indeed an empty block.  There are around 20,000 unconfirmed transactions.

[sloopy]

F2Pool will continue to mine empty blocks, spv mine, or anything else which they think gives them even the slightest advantage.
They are making the coin while it can be made no matter what it takes to do so.
Greed, she is evil and she will not be comforting when Mrs. Karma comes to play.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think either of the other ones (antpool) are any better. They don't say peep about it, and just keep doing it.

None of them care about bitcoin in any way, unless it serves their wallet.

Unless someone puts together a simple, coherent explanation the regular Joe's will not get it, and that's the ones who would care. So many wouldn't...

...and don't get me wrong. I would thoroughly love seeing some of these choices backfire in a big way.

[p3yot33at3r]

F2Pool will continue to mine empty blocks, spv mine, or anything else which they think gives them even the slightest advantage.
They are making the coin while it can be made no matter what it takes to do so.
Greed, she is evil and she will not be comforting when Mrs. Karma comes to play.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think either of the other ones (antpool) are any better. They don't say peep about it, and just keep doing it.

None of them care about bitcoin in any way, unless it serves their wallet.

Unless someone puts together a simple, coherent explanation the regular Joe's will not get it, and that's the ones who would care. So many wouldn't...

...and don't get me wrong. I would thoroughly love seeing some of these choices backfire in a big way.

This! Well said sloopy. It's the averge joe/noob that needs to be made aware of what is going on.

[jonnybravo0311]

Unfortunately, the average Joe probably won't care one way or the other.  He's going to get his BTC payout for mining on f2pool, AntPool, whatever pool, and will continue to mine there unless those payments fail to get to his wallet.  Furthermore, the people on the side of the argument that even empty blocks secure the blockchain aren't helping matters any.  It's almost too bad that there's any BTC awarded for finding a block.  Those pools would change their tunes very quickly if they got nothing from finding a block.  You can bet they'd stuff every transaction they could into a block.

[-ck]

It's almost too bad that there's any BTC awarded for finding a block.  Those pools would change their tunes very quickly if they got nothing from finding a block.  You can bet they'd stuff every transaction they could into a block.

As the block reward halves and transactions become a more significant proportion of the income they will need a different approach but for the time being the transaction rewards add only a little, though it's getting more every day. In a year when the reward is only 12.5 BTC, then the current transaction rewards of .25+ will regularly amount to 2%. It can only but rise with time, but not soon enough for the existing pools to give a shit about their empty blocks if people keep mining there.

[Mikestang]

if people keep mining there.

That's the key, the only way to get pools to care is to stop mining to them.

Really, pools that do care [about the bitcoin network] already don't mine empty blocks.  The ones that are only in it for a quick buck stick out like a sore thumb.