Block size debate and SPV mining

[Rexxxem]

I cant help but notice the disarray with the network lately. People are complaining of long confirmation times and high tx fees left and right. All i see is blocksize debate everywhere. Core this, classic that! But why isnt there that much concern about SPV mining?

My two sats..

Ok, cool. So we raise the block size limits. How does that help when a few of the biggest pools are mining blocks with little to literally no transaction fees? Empty blocks! It makes me cringe everytime i see a thread where someone says " I just got my new s7 and pointed it at (this top block finding pool)". * not specifying, not here to pool bash*

I know of a few small pools that mine fat juicy blocks that could use some of your hash and dont SPV mine. In my opinion, the less empty blocks the better.

( I am no expert on these subjects. If there is no correlation between the two and my perception is off, please enlighten me on my faulty thinking)

But i just had to ask  

Edit: I deleted the introductory paragraph because well, it was poorly written and seemed more like i was making spv mining sound like it was the cause of the more recent events, which is not the case.  I just dont think it is helping.

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[Lauda]

If you want to learn more about empty blocks then you could read up here. They are caused because of SPV mining. However, miners have the right to not include transactions in their blocks.

What do we attribute the current state of the network to more?

Define 'current state'. It seems fine to me.

All i see is blocksize debate everywhere. Core this, classic that! But why isnt there that much concern about SPV mining?

SPV mining is not an issue that is being discussed right now. The block size debate is about transaction capacity.

[Rexxxem]

If you want to learn more about empty blocks then you could read up here. They are caused because of SPV mining. However, miners have the right to not include transactions in their blocks.

What do we attribute the current state of the network to more?

Define 'current state'. It seems fine to me.

All i see is blocksize debate everywhere. Core this, classic that! But why isnt there that much concern about SPV mining?

SPV mining is not an issue that is being discussed right now. The block size debate is about transaction capacity.

Hey Lauda, thanks for chiming in for discussion.

What i mean by the current state of the network is unusual conformation times. Just over the last few days I see more and more complaints about this..

For example: the pool i mine on sends its rewards by block. So i get 4 or 5 payments at a time on occasion. Yesterday, transaction 3 of 5 confirmed before any of the rest, leaving me and a few others to believe we were missing payments. (Some explorers dont show unconfirmed txs) Ive never seen that before and to me it isnt normal.

Basically we had to wait until A. Our own pool mined a block and confirmed our own tx or B. Another pool (presumably a non SPV mining pool) confirmed it for us.

To my understanding, SPV mining builds the headers to the next block and starts mining on it without checking the tx in the previous block to cut out millaseconds of time inbetween propagation.

Ok, so they are aware of the new block faster but they aren't confirming many transactions at a time by doing that. Thus overr time they pile up waiting to be confirmed.

I guess the point im trying to get at is that raising the amount of transactions that a block can hold only treats the symptoms. How will it help when some of the biggest pools arent confirming that many tx at a time? Isnt the point of mining to push the previous actions forward? Not little by little waiting for the smaller guys to carry the rest of the load?

Again correct me if I'm wrong. Im here to continue learning.

[shorena]

Interesting picture that is passed around on twitter[1], it suggests (IMHO) that at least a part of the problem is the so called "SPV mining".



[1] https://twitter.com/sysmannet/status/704495413227872258

[Rexxxem]

Interesting picture that is passed around on twitter[1], it suggests (IMHO) that at least a part of the problem is the so called "SPV mining".

[1] https://twitter.com/sysmannet/status/704495413227872258

Thank you for sharing this information, Shorena! Ive seen similar though less current statistics.

While we have this ongoing civil war and node battle, people are either unaware or neglect to realize there are other (possibly less significant) underlying causes that could be remedied without developers intervention.

[pedrog]

Real time stats here:

https://chain.btc.com/en/stats/pool?pool_mode=day3

AntPool is the biggest producer of empty blocks.


Also this https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/spv-mining-is-the-solution-not-the-problem/

[Rexxxem]

Real time stats here:

https://chain.btc.com/en/stats/pool?pool_mode=day3

AntPool is the biggest producer of empty blocks.


Also this https://bitslog.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/spv-mining-is-the-solution-not-the-problem/

Very nice. That site is extremely resourceful! Pretty much a compilation of multiple site's i use mashed into one. Thanks for sharing that Pedrog 
I especially like the feature on the explorer that allows you to go back mm/dd/yy with all statitics displayed. Bitmain did a good job on that.

As for the article (that was published on my birthday), im still not sure how SPV mining could help this issue, though i did find this suggestion interesting

The other immediately evident modification is to allow header-only propagation, in a flood-fill mode, just before full block propagates in the normal announce-request mode. SPV Mining can be coded (as a policy) to be allowed for some very short time, such as 20 seconds. That gives plenty of time to download block transactions and validate them.

From what i get from that is it would allow the benefits of quicker block propagation and distribution to miners while still making sure that transactions are validated and included before moving onto the next.

There are still a few other variables that contribute to the slow confirmation times as well (obviously).  The swing in net hash isnt helping. Giant difficulty jumps followed by a decrease in net hash resulting in sometimes 40 minutes to an hour between blocks. But that is all more natural than other factors. Bitcoin is designed to fix that itself in due time.

I guess i just dont get how it helps/is helping if 1 or sometimes 2 out of every ten blocks neglect to broadcast thousands of transactions in the midst of everything else that is going on.

Am i missing something? I get that people are transacting with really low fees right now because they dont know what they should be. Maybe the block size limit should be increased. But from what i gather, SPV is not helping clear out the mempool right now.. and i dont see how it would even after a size increase..