Empty blocks

[sloopy]

I always try to stay on topic, but if I have the opportunity I am blasting what these pools are doing.

I have sold some S3s to a couple of acquaintances who have really been getting in the coin scene but I told them if I catch them supporting pools who do not use common sense for the community I will break in their house and steal them back!
Heh, obviously I would not go to that extreme, but the average 'Joe' who only cares about his / her own btc income simply hasn't been taught the error of their ways.

Of course it is easy to be uncaring behind a keyboard. If people take the time to read about what has transpired with all of the scams in bitcoinland since inception they will see a clear picture of the human psyche.
Not to get too far off topic here, but this is why we avoid religion and politics at meetings and parties, because people like to hide behind the facade of helping themselves. At what cost to others, and are you truly doing such by mining at Discus Fish or Antpool?
I am all for making a profit. I am all against doing something which will cause harm to the network. It is something akin to the great pyramids, or other natural wonders which has been achieved by the human race and you should each hold yourself to a higher standard.

When I was a little child I remember imagining my life was a movie the world was watching, every minute of every day. Then years later there was a real movie made called Truman? I think it was, Truman. As a child I simply thought about what an interesting thing it would be to pop in on different people and see what they were really like. As I grew and saw the movie it brought out many of the bad things which could possibly come of it, but real life, well it is much worse than either experience could have ever let me think about. My imagination has been outplayed many times by real life and seeing the choices people make.

I am far from a saint, and would love to make more coin, fiat, gold, silver, you name it.
I also want that movie of my life to replay and show mostly good things. I wish they had all been great choices but eh, I am human. Making the same choice day after day after day, after seeing proof of harming other people, other people's creations, or knowingly causing any sort of true harm for a bit of greed simply isn't worth it.

Back to politics and religion, I don't pretend to be a programmer, know what happens in the next world, or who the first President of the World will be, but I know that I don't want to go to bed tonight with the thought I made someone else hungry because I manipulated a system for a few bucks.

 I think F2pool and Antpool are black holes which need to be closed and I just hope the network and all of us are around to see it happen.
I also think if the people posting in this thread talk about these two subjects enough they can get through to some average joes. Anything is possible. You guys are smart enough to make a 'legal' way to attract their miners!

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[achow101]

I have sold some S3s to a couple of acquaintances who have really been getting in the coin scene but I told them if I catch them supporting pools who do not use common sense for the community I will break in their house and steal them back!
Heh, obviously I would not go to that extreme, but the average 'Joe' who only cares about his / her own btc income simply hasn't been taught the error of their ways.

What pool do you want them to mine with then? Every pool that I know of mines empty blocks. It is simply part of mining. Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does. They lose time and money by creating only full blocks. For receiving an extra 0.1-0.2 BTC every so often, it doesn't make much sense to most pool operators and miners.

[kano]

I have sold some S3s to a couple of acquaintances who have really been getting in the coin scene but I told them if I catch them supporting pools who do not use common sense for the community I will break in their house and steal them back!
Heh, obviously I would not go to that extreme, but the average 'Joe' who only cares about his / her own btc income simply hasn't been taught the error of their ways.

What pool do you want them to mine with then? Every pool that I know of mines empty blocks. It is simply part of mining. Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does. They lose time and money by creating only full blocks. For receiving an extra 0.1-0.2 BTC every so often, it doesn't make much sense to most pool operators and miners.

Well firstly, not every pool.
See the statistics posted.

Secondly, where did you come up with

Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does.

Have you verified this to be relevant?

It's a simple test to run 2 cgminers and compare 2 pools and see if it is relevant or not ...

As I have stated many times, my pool averages block changes FASTER than Eligius but also NEVER skips getting available transactions from the mempool ... ... ...

[-ck]

What pool do you want them to mine with then? Every pool that I know of mines empty blocks. It is simply part of mining. Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does. They lose time and money by creating only full blocks. For receiving an extra 0.1-0.2 BTC every so often, it doesn't make much sense to most pool operators and miners.

This is exactly the kind of misinformation spread by the pools responsible that we have proven is bullshit on this thread. It is NOT every pool mining empty blocks as has been stated over and over again on this thread. Nor do they HAVE to mine empty blocks to be fast on block changes. It is their choice of software and how they configure it at fault.

[sloopy]

I have sold some S3s to a couple of acquaintances who have really been getting in the coin scene but I told them if I catch them supporting pools who do not use common sense for the community I will break in their house and steal them back!
Heh, obviously I would not go to that extreme, but the average 'Joe' who only cares about his / her own btc income simply hasn't been taught the error of their ways.

What pool do you want them to mine with then? Every pool that I know of mines empty blocks. It is simply part of mining. Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does. They lose time and money by creating only full blocks. For receiving an extra 0.1-0.2 BTC every so often, it doesn't make much sense to most pool operators and miners.

Man you gotta take a long look at what they are doing and what they plainly state they are doing.
I assure you I am not here bitching about it for my health. I sincerely prefer lurking and learning much more than posting and comparing.
When I see something which feels like an injustice I take a second look, and a third, and I start asking people who have earned a level of trust regarding the topic, and I read more. If you look at the threads from the Bitcoin Discussion section, the Development & Technical Discussion threads, along with the Discus Fish / F2pool thread it all adds up. Especially when the spokesperson / one of the pool operators or owners states very clearly what their intentions are. My understanding of his intent is he flat does not care about anything but his profit. Not the network, not miners (except to make himself profit) and certainly not the individuals who see this network as bigger than what profit we are making today. I said that is my interpretation but I quoted a few posts up exactly what was said regarding SPV mining and that attitude carries through to 0 or single transaction blocks, whichever way you wish to refer to it. Sure there were great reasons early in the network's life to have MT blocks, but man we have been living with a backlog of transactions and they (MT blocks) are still being submitted.

I am not a programmer and probably as close to an average Joe or closer than most of the people who have posted in this thread. There have been posts by some extremely bright and talented individuals with not only the knowledge, the skills, the experience but the right type of neutral outlook on the entire scene. They have presented information which is based in fact you can check for yourself.

It is a decision / decisions to use the software which is setup to cause the scenarios we are discussing in order to make more profit at the expense of anyone and everyone. I applaud you for taking time to consider this discussion, but I sincerely request you take a moment to consider what anyone, or even me in particular would have to gain by posting anything negative about F2pool / Discus Fish. I used them as a backup pool to my normal PPLNS pools with a tiny amount of hashrate. It is through reading the aforementioned areas of this forum, following events unfolding over the past few weeks along with spending months of reading and watching videos from any bitcoin source of information I can find on the net.

If you take a few minutes and look at bitcoin.org and read through some of the conversations here and other places I am sure you will see these actions have negatively impacted the network. Once I saw the motive, I suspected, once I saw the action that morning of the 4th I saw the crime, and once I straight up asked in their thread and they told me well it did not take much more for me to understand that these people do not care if their actions negatively impact the network. They care if it profits them today.

I read F2pool lost 5% of their hash over the fork so you may think they would pay attention to such a loss, no. They have a system in play and the SPV mining will never stop because it leads to a higher success rate which in turn attracts more miners who are not familiar with their practices. 0 - 1 transaction blocks also lead to a higher success rate due to propagation times. The world isn't fair, but there is a right and wrong.

At some point you have to ask yourself the most simple question... if spv mining and 0-1 transaction blocks lead to a higher success rate without having a negative impact on the network and its users / miners why wouldn't every pool do it?

[p3yot33at3r]

HINT.

Answer - is it:

a) Greed?
b) Uncaring disregard for the Bitcoin Eco-system?
c) Shoddy coding?
d) Pure greed?
e) All of the above?

Answers on the offending pools threads please 

[achow101]

I have sold some S3s to a couple of acquaintances who have really been getting in the coin scene but I told them if I catch them supporting pools who do not use common sense for the community I will break in their house and steal them back!
Heh, obviously I would not go to that extreme, but the average 'Joe' who only cares about his / her own btc income simply hasn't been taught the error of their ways.

What pool do you want them to mine with then? Every pool that I know of mines empty blocks. It is simply part of mining. Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does. They lose time and money by creating only full blocks. For receiving an extra 0.1-0.2 BTC every so often, it doesn't make much sense to most pool operators and miners.

Well firstly, not every pool.
See the statistics posted.

Well, I stand corrected. I didn't quite understand the data since I didn't see any headings, but after examining it a little more, it seems that your pool and a few others have never found an empty block, which I find kind of surprising.

Secondly, where did you come up with

Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does.

Have you verified this to be relevant?

I used logic, I have not verified it. Logically, more CPU cycles to process transactions will take more time than not spending those cpu cycles to process transactions. However, I will test this and see if my theory is correct.

It's a simple test to run 2 cgminers and compare 2 pools and see if it is relevant or not ...

As I have stated many times, my pool averages block changes FASTER than Eligius but also NEVER skips getting available transactions from the mempool ... ... ...

I do not think that such a test would be an accurate test. Since both pools use different software and are run on different servers and configurations, there are too many variables that could change those times. Instead, I will perform a test on a regtest network where I will create a mempool of 0, 10000, 50000, and 100000 transactions and compare the times it takes for the getwork and getblocktemplate commands to complete. This creates a controlled test environment and reduces other factors that could affect results.

At some point you have to ask yourself the most simple question... if spv mining and 0-1 transaction blocks lead to a higher success rate without having a negative impact on the network and its users / miners why wouldn't every pool do it?

Because it negatively impacts the network. As we have seen with SPV mining, there are issues that can occur and cause blockchain forks and weaken Bitcoin. However, I personally don't think empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block, so for transactions, it really is just like a block was found with two block rewards. It doesn't particularly mess with confirmation times and while it would be nice if those blocks included transactions, it doesn't matter (at least for me) that those transactions wait another ten minutes like they should have

[kano]

...

Secondly, where did you come up with

Gathering transactions from the mepool to fill a block takes time, time when another pool that doesn't do that can claim the block reward before your pool does.

Have you verified this to be relevant?

I used logic, I have not verified it. Logically, more CPU cycles to process transactions will take more time than not spending those cpu cycles to process transactions. However, I will test this and see if my theory is correct.

It's a simple test to run 2 cgminers and compare 2 pools and see if it is relevant or not ...

As I have stated many times, my pool averages block changes FASTER than Eligius but also NEVER skips getting available transactions from the mempool ... ... ...

I do not think that such a test would be an accurate test. Since both pools use different software and are run on different servers and configurations, there are too many variables that could change those times. Instead, I will perform a test on a regtest network where I will create a mempool of 0, 10000, 50000, and 100000 transactions and compare the times it takes for the getwork and getblocktemplate commands to complete. This creates a controlled test environment and reduces other factors that could affect results.
...

And yet my test checks the ONLY reason to do it.

If a pool is sending you slower block changes, then the argument to use it is completely nullified.

The reason to do it, is to reduce the amount of time spent mining on stale work.

If what ever the pool does means a certain pool is slower at getting you new work, then ... well it seems blatantly obvious to me ...

Lets look at it this way:
If my pool can get new work extremely quickly ... most of the time ... and your RPi takes 12 days to process a block change ... who cares about your test?

It is quite obvious that doing more work takes more time.
What is also obvious is that the way we process block changes without doing something bad for bitcoin, is faster than that another pool that does the "faster" way this bad for bitcoin.

My point is the more obvious that there are all sorts of things that do affect the pool producing block changes.
While we are not doing one that is specifically bad for bitcoin, we still win.

[kano]

...
Because it negatively impacts the network. As we have seen with SPV mining, there are issues that can occur and cause blockchain forks and weaken Bitcoin. However, I personally don't think empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block, so for transactions, it really is just like a block was found with two block rewards. It doesn't particularly mess with confirmation times and while it would be nice if those blocks included transactions, it doesn't matter (at least for me) that those transactions wait another ten minutes like they should have

Um, you completely misunderstood something there.
It doesn't matter if 2 blocks are found 1 second apart or 1 hour apart.
They are still counted in determining the future difficulty that determines future transaction confirm times.
If every 2nd block was found as such a pair, then that means the network can only confirm half as many transactions over a given time period.

[achow101]

And yet my test checks the ONLY reason to do it.

If a pool is sending you slower block changes, then the argument to use it is completely nullified.

The reason to do it, is to reduce the amount of time spent mining on stale work.

If what ever the pool does means a certain pool is slower at getting you new work, then ... well it seems blatantly obvious to me ...

Lets look at it this way:
If my pool can get new work extremely quickly ... most of the time ... and your RPi takes 12 days to process a block change ... who cares about your test?

It is quite obvious that doing more work takes more time.
What is also obvious is that the way we process block changes without doing something bad for bitcoin, is faster than that another pool that does the "faster" way this bad for bitcoin.

My point is the more obvious that there are all sorts of things that do affect the pool producing block changes.
While we are not doing one that is specifically bad for bitcoin, we still win.

I'm not trying to compare two specific implementations. My point is that miners will choose to continue to allow empty blocks to be mined because they in general allow them to make more money. Some implementations might be worse than others, for instance, your ckpool software is obviously working better or on better hardware than Eligius's software.

Consider this:
I set up a pool using the exact same software, server config, etc, except I allow empty blocks to be mined. Since I am not using extra cpu time to gather mempool transactions, logically, I will have faster block changes and more blocks than you will.

Another thing, you seem to be comparing between you and Eligius. Both only represent a small percentage of the hash power. What about comparing between your and f2pool or antpool? Are their block changes faster than your or not? Have you tried?

...
Because it negatively impacts the network. As we have seen with SPV mining, there are issues that can occur and cause blockchain forks and weaken Bitcoin. However, I personally don't think empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block, so for transactions, it really is just like a block was found with two block rewards. It doesn't particularly mess with confirmation times and while it would be nice if those blocks included transactions, it doesn't matter (at least for me) that those transactions wait another ten minutes like they should have

Um, you completely misunderstood something there.
It doesn't matter if 2 blocks are found 1 second apart or 1 hour apart.
They are still counted in determining the future difficulty that determines future transaction confirm times.
If every 2nd block was found as such a pair, then that means the network can only confirm half as many transactions over a given time period.

Right. I forgot about the difficulty retarget. However, those blocks found with extreme time differences (1 sec or 1 hour) essentially cancel each other out in regards to the retarget.

[sloopy]

At some point you have to ask yourself the most simple question... if spv mining and 0-1 transaction blocks lead to a higher success rate without having a negative impact on the network and its users / miners why wouldn't every pool do it?

Because it negatively impacts the network. As we have seen with SPV mining, there are issues that can occur and cause blockchain forks and weaken Bitcoin. However, I personally don't think empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block, so for transactions, it really is just like a block was found with two block rewards. It doesn't particularly mess with confirmation times and while it would be nice if those blocks included transactions, it doesn't matter (at least for me) that those transactions wait another ten minutes like they should have

I believe you will find as with SPV mining 0-1 block transactions do indeed cause issues when they are the goal. If it were something which happened as a byproduct, as with the early days of mining then it is not having an impact. When pools make a conscious decision and not only this one, but choose to have a mindset geared in this manner it speaks volumes regarding their largest motivation.


Please, give me your opinion from your own research should Elgius have better payouts to their miners?

All things equal and 0-1 transaction blocks, etc but as a pool that still want profits. F2pool is pps and motivated to propagate faster as well, but  for their individual profit and if they did not pay pps (again in your opinion) would they have the share of the network they have today?

I do not see any pool which doesn't care about profit or deny caring as any capitalistic enterprise should. IT is what is 'supposed' to keep miners on task.
I see a huge difference in the way pools choose to get there and the payouts to miners.
I also see a huge line in the sand between pools who choose to mine 0-1 transactions and SPV mine versus the ones who do not choose to do either.

Through all of the reading I have done there have been various PPS and PPLNS pools but most of the one's which are no more seemed to share a common history. PPS go broke and cannot pay the miners. There are scams, and over-promising, bad operators, but overall you start seeing it well before they close. PPLNS the same, but variance hits PPS much harder doesn't it? I mean much harder, right? I know you know this but I am talking it out for myself, but the PPS must pay for every share no matter what, and a PPS pool with 1 - 2 PH is almost immediately laughed out of the community starting up these days. If they throw in some other things like the first miner to pop a block gets the 25, or do PPS in combination with DVG I think it is like MMpool, but overall a straight up PPS pool is no more except at F2pool, and now Antpool has the option.
 
Is it a coincidence those are also two of the largest pools in the network, mining the ways they are? Why did Antpool suddenly employ the PPS option? You can just click and select a 2.5% PPS for your entire account. They are not doing such to lose money. They could have left the price of S5s at $340 and still be making a great profit but the price was jacked to 430ish with freight to the US. They are not making decisions to lose money. They also work together as stated in the F2pool thread by the same owner / operator who said they will not stop. Antpool notified F2pool fairly quick, or was it the other way?

I am not claiming some ultra conspiracy exists. I am stating there are pools whose ultimate priority is to make a profit today no matter how it impacts the overall network, any pools outside their circle of trust, and of course any user by making decisions to cut out time.  

When there is a backlog of transactions, the mempool is loaded heavier than it has ever been in the past and for most people the goal is to grow the network and gain adoption the only reason not to include those transactions is to get the block out faster. I think we agree on this, but differ on the the motivation being morally acceptable in our view of what bitcoin is supposed to be.

Being a wishful idealist I want my cake and to eat it with ice cream and pie, which I mean I want profits, and I want a protected network with my pools paying me well and making choices which guarantee the security of a network decades from now.
I think F2pool, Antpool, and a few others care the most about lining their pockets, about how much they can make between now and the halving, and doing it any way possible. These things show intent, and they brag about it.  

As you mentioned SPV mining has cause forking issue but MT blocks do not have a negative impact. I still have the same question of if so, why isn't every pool making that choice?
 




 

[kano]

And yet my test checks the ONLY reason to do it.

If a pool is sending you slower block changes, then the argument to use it is completely nullified.

The reason to do it, is to reduce the amount of time spent mining on stale work.

If what ever the pool does means a certain pool is slower at getting you new work, then ... well it seems blatantly obvious to me ...

Lets look at it this way:
If my pool can get new work extremely quickly ... most of the time ... and your RPi takes 12 days to process a block change ... who cares about your test?

It is quite obvious that doing more work takes more time.
What is also obvious is that the way we process block changes without doing something bad for bitcoin, is faster than that another pool that does the "faster" way this bad for bitcoin.

My point is the more obvious that there are all sorts of things that do affect the pool producing block changes.
While we are not doing one that is specifically bad for bitcoin, we still win.

I'm not trying to compare two specific implementations. My point is that miners will choose to continue to allow empty blocks to be mined because they in general allow them to make more money. Some implementations might be worse than others, for instance, your ckpool software is obviously working better or on better hardware than Eligius's software.

Consider this:
I set up a pool using the exact same software, server config, etc, except I allow empty blocks to be mined. Since I am not using extra cpu time to gather mempool transactions, logically, I will have faster block changes and more blocks than you will.

Consider this, you have a powerful server, a drastically well tuned bitcoind, a very good protected internet connection ... and that overhead suddenly seems really not worth caring about ...
Your test is also considering something else that doesn't affect me

Another thing, you seem to be comparing between you and Eligius. Both only represent a small percentage of the hash power. What about comparing between your and f2pool or antpool? Are their block changes faster than your or not? Have you tried?

Yes but there is something going on there that concerns me even more ...
1 in every few they find, the antpool block shows up on the network ~8s later than when they find it ...
This throws off my stats comparison and I don't know why they are doing this ...
Also there are different random time ranges when you get different results ...

...
Because it negatively impacts the network. As we have seen with SPV mining, there are issues that can occur and cause blockchain forks and weaken Bitcoin. However, I personally don't think empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block, so for transactions, it really is just like a block was found with two block rewards. It doesn't particularly mess with confirmation times and while it would be nice if those blocks included transactions, it doesn't matter (at least for me) that those transactions wait another ten minutes like they should have

Um, you completely misunderstood something there.
It doesn't matter if 2 blocks are found 1 second apart or 1 hour apart.
They are still counted in determining the future difficulty that determines future transaction confirm times.
If every 2nd block was found as such a pair, then that means the network can only confirm half as many transactions over a given time period.

Right. I forgot about the difficulty retarget. However, those blocks found with extreme time differences (1 sec or 1 hour) essentially cancel each other out in regards to the retarget.

I've no idea what you mean by cancel each other out?
Network difficulty is the factor in determining the average block time.
The time difference between 2 blocks does not affect the speed of the block after it.

Empty blocks simply mean that less transactions per time period can be processed.
They are counted like every other block on the network for determining diff changes.

[achow101]

I believe you will find as with SPV mining 0-1 block transactions do indeed cause issues when they are the goal. If it were something which happened as a byproduct, as with the early days of mining then it is not having an impact. When pools make a conscious decision and not only this one, but choose to have a mindset geared in this manner it speaks volumes regarding their largest motivation.

I haven't seen any evidence of miners intentionally mining empty blocks. To me, they just seem to be a byproduct of their mining operations which probably aren't all that optimized so mining empty blocks still allows them to be competitive. Of course, if they are mining empty blocks intentionally, then they are also losing some Bitcoin from fees (not enough to have a large impact) and hurting the network.

Being a wishful idealist I want my cake and to eat it with ice cream and pie, which I mean I want profits, and I want a protected network with my pools paying me well and making choices which guarantee the security of a network decades from now.
I think F2pool, Antpool, and a few others care the most about lining their pockets, about how much they can make between now and the halving, and doing it any way possible. These things show intent, and they brag about it.  

As you mentioned SPV mining has cause forking issue but MT blocks do not have a negative impact. I still have the same question of if so, why isn't every pool making that choice?

Some pools have better conditions than others. As kano stated

Consider this, you have a powerful server, a drastically well tuned bitcoind, a very good protected internet connection ... and that overhead suddenly seems really not worth caring about ...

Those pools with those conditions and other mindsets as ck and kano have (seems to want to help the network, not just profit) choose not to mine empty blocks because at the very least, there is no incentive. They can make more by including more transactions because of fees. And since they have conditions where the overhead doesn't matter, why not mine full blocks and fully verify blocks?

Also, for Chinese miners and pools, that overhead does matter. They might have a powerful server, probably not a well tuned bitcoind or they have poorly written custom software, and they most likely have a shitty internet connection due to the Great Firewall. This makes them find every possible way to make a profit, which includes having to SPV mine and mine empty blocks.

I've no idea what you mean by cancel each other out?
Network difficulty is the factor in determining the average block time.
The time difference between 2 blocks does not affect the speed of the block after it.

Empty blocks simply mean that less transactions per time period can be processed.
They are counted like every other block on the network for determining diff changes.

I mean that the average of two blocks, one found a few seconds after the previous and the other twenty minutes after the last block, is still around 10 minutes. The affect of those blocks on the difficulty retarget is negligible.

[jonnybravo0311]

I haven't seen any evidence of miners intentionally mining empty blocks. To me, they just seem to be a byproduct of their mining operations which probably aren't all that optimized so mining empty blocks still allows them to be competitive. Of course, if they are mining empty blocks intentionally, then they are also losing some Bitcoin from fees (not enough to have a large impact) and hurting the network.

You won't see it, either.  A miner doesn't control whether or not the block is empty, the pool does.  One could argue that as a solo miner, I could configure my bitcoind to do something silly like "do not include any transactions that have a fee lower than 100BTC".  In that case, if I ever happened to find a solo block, then it would very likely be empty.

Also, for Chinese miners and pools, that overhead does matter. They might have a powerful server, probably not a well tuned bitcoind or they have poorly written custom software, and they most likely have a shitty internet connection due to the Great Firewall. This makes them find every possible way to make a profit, which includes having to SPV mine and mine empty blocks.

If they have a poorly tuned bitcoind, poorly written custom software, etc. shouldn't they address those problems?  They don't.  Instead they remain lazy.  Bitmain has proven time and again they can't write software worth a damn, and they just don't do anything about it.  Even with kano including the Bitmain drivers in mainline cgminer, Bitmain still uses its own crap fork.  There are pools and pool software out there proven to work faster and be better for the health of the ecosystem.  If these players are so worried about their profit, don't you think they'd do everything they can to maximize it?  SPV mining and empty blocks is not the answer, yet these pools and their operators fall back on it just the same.

[drakoin]

Sorry for waking up this thread.

I am thrilled to see all the data analysis since my last post here. Especially the time evolution looks like a real signal. Well done. Very interesting, thanks a lot to organofcorti, and jonnybravo0311; and everyone who asked the right questions.


Catching up with my reading ... I might have one more such question:

...

... if spv mining and 0-1 transaction blocks lead to a higher success rate without having a negative impact on the network and its users / miners why wouldn't every pool do it?

Because it negatively impacts the network. As we have seen with SPV mining, there are issues that can occur and cause blockchain forks and weaken Bitcoin. However, I personally don't think empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block, so for transactions, it really is just like a block was found with two block rewards. ...

If that ("within seconds of the previous block") is empirically found, let's close the case.

But ...

... empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block ...

It should be non-difficult, to aggregate the block generation times of all those 1-tx-blocks ... per mining pool. By giving arithmetic mean, and standard variation of the 1-tx-block-generation-times PER POOL. Together with the number of such 1-tx blocks per pool, it could give an estimate of the statistical significance of the two hypotheses "just a mining software effect" versus "deliberate attempt at freeriding".

[eleuthria]

It doesn't matter if the blocks were found within seconds of each other unless you're looking at pre-2013 blocks.  I doubt there has never been a point in the last 2 years where there were 0 legitimate unconfirmed transactions on the network.

[achow101]

It doesn't matter if the blocks were found within seconds of each other unless you're looking at pre-2013 blocks.  I doubt there has never been a point in the last 2 years where there were 0 legitimate unconfirmed transactions on the network.

Perhaps if you read the other stuff I posted about how those blocks found within seconds of the previous you would know why that can happen. I'm not going to repeat myself.

Sorry for waking up this thread.

I am thrilled to see all the data analysis since my last post here. Especially the time evolution looks like a real signal. Well done. Very interesting, thanks a lot to organofcorti, and jonnybravo0311; and everyone who asked the right questions.


Catching up with my reading ... I might have one more such question:

...

... if spv mining and 0-1 transaction blocks lead to a higher success rate without having a negative impact on the network and its users / miners why wouldn't every pool do it?

Because it negatively impacts the network. As we have seen with SPV mining, there are issues that can occur and cause blockchain forks and weaken Bitcoin. However, I personally don't think empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block, so for transactions, it really is just like a block was found with two block rewards. ...

If that ("within seconds of the previous block") is empirically found, let's close the case.

But ...

... empty blocks negatively impact the network. They are typically found within seconds of the previous block ...

It should be non-difficult, to aggregate the block generation times of all those 1-tx-blocks ... per mining pool. By giving arithmetic mean, and standard variation of the 1-tx-block-generation-times PER POOL. Together with the number of such 1-tx blocks per pool, it could give an estimate of the statistical significance of the two hypotheses "just a mining software effect" versus "deliberate attempt at freeriding".

You can run the numbers, let us know what you find.

[p3yot33at3r]

Bumping for awareness & educational purposes.....

[TracerX]

Bumping for awareness & educational purposes.....

I've built a little tool to help visualize these blocks at bitblk.com.  F2Pool loves to drop empty BTC blocks, but it slaughters the Litecoin network.  I'm amazed more people aren't aware of this.

I'll be adding a bit of copy that describes the issue for users that may be unaware--if we keep talking about it maybe we can affect change!

Cheers.

[Nexious]

Bumping for awareness & educational purposes.....

I've built a little tool to help visualize these blocks at bitblk.com.  F2Pool loves to drop empty BTC blocks, but it slaughters the Litecoin network.  I'm amazed more people aren't aware of this.

I'll be adding a bit of copy that describes the issue for users that may be unaware--if we keep talking about it maybe we can affect change!

Cheers.

Handy little website TracerX thanks adding to my bookmarks