Bitcoin Forum
November 06, 2024, 04:41:57 PM *
News: Latest Bitcoin Core release: 28.0 [Torrent]
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register More  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: Is the BTC network broken?  (Read 1703 times)
MRKLYE (OP)
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1358
Merit: 1003


Designer - Developer


View Profile WWW
August 27, 2013, 07:24:33 AM
 #1

These block times range from constipation to diarrhea... My understanding was 10 minute blocks?
What has happened?


▄▄███████████▄▄
▄████▀▀`````````▀▀████▄
███▀```````````````````▀███
███`````````````````````````███
██```````````██``██````````````██
██````````▄▄▄▄██▄▄██▄▄▄▄`````````██
██`````````▀██████████████▄````````██
██`````````````███`````▀████`````````██
▐█▌`````````````███`````▄███▀`````````▐█▌
▐█▌`````````````███████████▄``````````▐█▌
▐█▌`````````````███▀▀▀▀▀▀████▄````````▐█▌
▐█▌`````````````███```````████````````▐█▌
██`````````````███`````▄▄████````````██
██`````````▄██████████████▀````````██
██````````▀▀▀▀██▀▀██▀▀▀▀`````````██
██```````````██``██````````````██
███`````````````````````````███
███▄```````````````````▄███
▀████▄▄`````````▄▄████▀
▀▀███████████▀▀
FREE
BITCOINS.com





















`````````▄
````````▄█▄
``````▄█████▄
`````█████████
```▄███████████▄
``███████████████
`█████████████████
███████████████████
███████████████████
██▌▀███████████████
`██``▀████████████
``██▄```▀████████
```▀███▄▄`█████▀
``````▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

FAUCET
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀



``````````````````▄▄▄▄▄▄
``````````````````██████
``````````````````██████
``````````````````██████
``````````██████``██████
``````````██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████

██████████████████████████
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

XCHANGE
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀



```````````▄
`````````▄██
```````▄████
`````▄██████████▄
`````▀███████████▄
```````▀████``▀████
█``````▄`▀██````▀██
██▄````██▄`▀``````█
████▄``████▄
`▀███████████▄
``▀██████████▀
```````████▀
```````██▀
```````▀

SWAP
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Meni Rosenfeld
Donator
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054



View Profile WWW
August 27, 2013, 07:30:19 AM
 #2

10 minute average (slightly less when hashrate is increasing), actual time between blocks varies and follows the exponential distribution.

1EofoZNBhWQ3kxfKnvWkhtMns4AivZArhr   |   Who am I?   |   bitcoin-otc WoT
Bitcoil - Exchange bitcoins for ILS (thread)   |   Israel Bitcoin community homepage (thread)
Analysis of Bitcoin Pooled Mining Reward Systems (thread, summary)  |   PureMining - Infinite-term, deterministic mining bond
DeathAndTaxes
Donator
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079


Gerald Davis


View Profile
August 27, 2013, 07:30:35 AM
 #3

These block times range from constipation to diarrhea... My understanding was 10 minute blocks?
What has happened?

Your understanding was wrong.  Bitcoin mining is random and follows a poisson distribution.  The AVERAGE time between blocks will be 10 minutes when the network is neither growing or shrinking.  The time between any two blocks is random.
MRKLYE (OP)
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1358
Merit: 1003


Designer - Developer


View Profile WWW
August 27, 2013, 07:45:15 AM
 #4

These block times range from constipation to diarrhea... My understanding was 10 minute blocks?
What has happened?

Your understanding was wrong.  Bitcoin mining is random and follows a poisson distribution.  The AVERAGE time between blocks will be 10 minutes when the network is neither growing or shrinking.  The time between any two blocks is random.

Thanks for the explanation!


▄▄███████████▄▄
▄████▀▀`````````▀▀████▄
███▀```````````````````▀███
███`````````````````````````███
██```````````██``██````````````██
██````````▄▄▄▄██▄▄██▄▄▄▄`````````██
██`````````▀██████████████▄````````██
██`````````````███`````▀████`````````██
▐█▌`````````````███`````▄███▀`````````▐█▌
▐█▌`````````````███████████▄``````````▐█▌
▐█▌`````````````███▀▀▀▀▀▀████▄````````▐█▌
▐█▌`````````````███```````████````````▐█▌
██`````````````███`````▄▄████````````██
██`````````▄██████████████▀````````██
██````````▀▀▀▀██▀▀██▀▀▀▀`````````██
██```````````██``██````````````██
███`````````````````````````███
███▄```````````````````▄███
▀████▄▄`````````▄▄████▀
▀▀███████████▀▀
FREE
BITCOINS.com





















`````````▄
````````▄█▄
``````▄█████▄
`````█████████
```▄███████████▄
``███████████████
`█████████████████
███████████████████
███████████████████
██▌▀███████████████
`██``▀████████████
``██▄```▀████████
```▀███▄▄`█████▀
``````▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

FAUCET
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀



``````````````````▄▄▄▄▄▄
``````````````````██████
``````````````````██████
``````````````````██████
``````````██████``██████
``````````██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████
``██████``██████``██████

██████████████████████████
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

XCHANGE
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀



```````````▄
`````````▄██
```````▄████
`````▄██████████▄
`````▀███████████▄
```````▀████``▀████
█``````▄`▀██````▀██
██▄````██▄`▀``````█
████▄``████▄
`▀███████████▄
``▀██████████▀
```````████▀
```````██▀
```````▀

SWAP
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Meni Rosenfeld
Donator
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054



View Profile WWW
August 27, 2013, 08:22:18 AM
 #5

Bitcoin mining is random and follows a poisson distribution.
Bitcoin mining follows the Poisson process. Number of blocks in an interval follows the Poisson distribution.

1EofoZNBhWQ3kxfKnvWkhtMns4AivZArhr   |   Who am I?   |   bitcoin-otc WoT
Bitcoil - Exchange bitcoins for ILS (thread)   |   Israel Bitcoin community homepage (thread)
Analysis of Bitcoin Pooled Mining Reward Systems (thread, summary)  |   PureMining - Infinite-term, deterministic mining bond
MysteryMiner
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1512
Merit: 1049


Death to enemies!


View Profile
August 27, 2013, 03:21:18 PM
 #6

These block times range from constipation to diarrhea... My understanding was 10 minute blocks?
What has happened?
When dealing with bitcoin constipation try taking some block erupters!

Seriously the average time is 10 minutes, the time between blocks can be between few seconds and as much as 9 hours. To get at least 1 confirm is less than any other payment alternative. If 10 min average is not enough and people will get guaranteed in 10 seconds somebody will come and complain about need to wait 10 sec.

bc1q59y5jp2rrwgxuekc8kjk6s8k2es73uawprre4j
RodeoX
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 3066
Merit: 1147


The revolution will be monetized!


View Profile
August 27, 2013, 03:26:03 PM
 #7

Just out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know the shortest and longest periods between blocks thus far?

The gospel according to Satoshi - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Free bitcoin in ? - Stay tuned for this years Bitcoin hunt!
MysteryMiner
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1512
Merit: 1049


Death to enemies!


View Profile
August 27, 2013, 03:31:22 PM
 #8

Just out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know the shortest and longest periods between blocks thus far?
There was a thread long ago about longest time between blocks. If I remember it was like 9 hours.

bc1q59y5jp2rrwgxuekc8kjk6s8k2es73uawprre4j
RodeoX
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 3066
Merit: 1147


The revolution will be monetized!


View Profile
August 27, 2013, 03:35:13 PM
 #9

Just out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know the shortest and longest periods between blocks thus far?
There was a thread long ago about longest time between blocks. If I remember it was like 9 hours.
Wow, I'm guessing that made a few people nervous.
Thanks MM.

The gospel according to Satoshi - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Free bitcoin in ? - Stay tuned for this years Bitcoin hunt!
Meni Rosenfeld
Donator
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054



View Profile WWW
August 27, 2013, 03:41:42 PM
 #10

Just out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know the shortest and longest periods between blocks thus far?
Better yet, where can we found tabular data of blocks and their vital data (e.g., timestamp and difficulty) from which this can easily be deduced? The closest to this I found was blockexplorer nethash, but the minimum allowed is steps of 5 blocks.

"Shortest interval" would be somewhat undefined since published timestamps don't have to be synchronized, you can have negative intervals.

As for longest, if 254508 blocks are distributed exponentially with mean 10 minutes, you'd expect the max to be 130 minutes.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know the shortest and longest periods between blocks thus far?
There was a thread long ago about longest time between blocks. If I remember it was like 9 hours.
That's virtually impossible unless there was something very wrong with the network. If it's distributed as usual the chance of that is one in a trillion trillions.

1EofoZNBhWQ3kxfKnvWkhtMns4AivZArhr   |   Who am I?   |   bitcoin-otc WoT
Bitcoil - Exchange bitcoins for ILS (thread)   |   Israel Bitcoin community homepage (thread)
Analysis of Bitcoin Pooled Mining Reward Systems (thread, summary)  |   PureMining - Infinite-term, deterministic mining bond
flatfly
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1092
Merit: 1016

760930


View Profile
August 27, 2013, 04:24:05 PM
 #11

block 15324 (May 2009), 25 hours:
 http://blockchain.info/en/block/00000000720e7a19e31ca6cc9d2364705b49590f0ede8b0356cb46a8e486ab8f

and a bunch of others...
Meni Rosenfeld
Donator
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054



View Profile WWW
August 27, 2013, 04:27:09 PM
 #12

Yeah, probably Satoshi was the only miner and he turned off his computer... Indeed, something very wrong with the network.

1EofoZNBhWQ3kxfKnvWkhtMns4AivZArhr   |   Who am I?   |   bitcoin-otc WoT
Bitcoil - Exchange bitcoins for ILS (thread)   |   Israel Bitcoin community homepage (thread)
Analysis of Bitcoin Pooled Mining Reward Systems (thread, summary)  |   PureMining - Infinite-term, deterministic mining bond
DeathAndTaxes
Donator
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079


Gerald Davis


View Profile
August 27, 2013, 04:51:33 PM
 #13

Yeah, probably Satoshi was the only miner and he turned off his computer... Indeed, something very wrong with the network.

Due to the low number of active nodes and the fact that hashing power didn't even meet difficulty (the expected time between blocks was ~30 minutes) blocks from the first year aren't really useful. Anecdotal I remember waiting 2 hours for the 6th confirm (not 6 confirms just one more confirm to make 6) so MtGox would credit my account.

It would be useful if someone pulled the timestamps from the blockchain and put them in table form.  The only problem is that since the network allows such loose timestamps any 1 block distribution is going to have "weird" numbers (like negative block times).  However the results should be cleaner if one looked at multiple bloks.  i.e. the distribution of a 3 block or 6 block interval.  That might be more useful in a lot of circumstances (like seeing how rare my deposit at MtGox frustration was).
Meni Rosenfeld
Donator
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 2058
Merit: 1054



View Profile WWW
August 27, 2013, 05:51:33 PM
 #14

Yeah, probably Satoshi was the only miner and he turned off his computer... Indeed, something very wrong with the network.

Due to the low number of active nodes and the fact that hashing power didn't even meet difficulty (the expected time between blocks was ~30 minutes) blocks from the first year aren't really useful. Anecdotal I remember waiting 2 hours for the 6th confirm (not 6 confirms just one more confirm to make 6) so MtGox would credit my account.

It would be useful if someone pulled the timestamps from the blockchain and put them in table form.  The only problem is that since the network allows such loose timestamps any 1 block distribution is going to have "weird" numbers (like negative block times).  However the results should be cleaner if one looked at multiple bloks.  i.e. the distribution of a 3 block or 6 block interval.  That might be more useful in a lot of circumstances (like seeing how rare my deposit at MtGox frustration was).
Well, for 6 block intervals you can use http://blockexplorer.com/q/nethash/6. 2nd field is Unix timestamp.

For reference, the time until 6 blocks are founds follows the Erlang distribution, with shape parameter 6.

1EofoZNBhWQ3kxfKnvWkhtMns4AivZArhr   |   Who am I?   |   bitcoin-otc WoT
Bitcoil - Exchange bitcoins for ILS (thread)   |   Israel Bitcoin community homepage (thread)
Analysis of Bitcoin Pooled Mining Reward Systems (thread, summary)  |   PureMining - Infinite-term, deterministic mining bond
twmz
Hero Member
*****
Offline Offline

Activity: 737
Merit: 500



View Profile
August 27, 2013, 06:03:37 PM
 #15

Better yet, where can we found tabular data of blocks and their vital data (e.g., timestamp and difficulty) from which this can easily be deduced? The closest to this I found was blockexplorer nethash, but the minimum allowed is steps of 5 blocks.

Data on all blocks can be obtained by the blockchain.info API, but you'd have to make multiple API calls to get all the data (they have no API that dumps everything in one call).  Probably the blocks-in-one-day API would be the easiest to access.  Just have to make 1 call for each day since the network went live (which is many fewer requests than 1 per block-height).

Was I helpful?  1TwmzX1wBxNF2qtAJRhdKmi2WyLZ5VHRs
WoT, GPG

Bitrated user: ewal.
MysteryMiner
Legendary
*
Offline Offline

Activity: 1512
Merit: 1049


Death to enemies!


View Profile
August 28, 2013, 01:03:14 AM
 #16

I have blockchain with client version from 0.20.2 incrementally upgraded to 0.4.1 on harddrive since February 2011 till November 2012. Is it possible to get additional data from it including when each block got received? I guess there might be additional data in BerkleyDB files but I'm not sure.

bc1q59y5jp2rrwgxuekc8kjk6s8k2es73uawprre4j
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.19 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!