I think we can all agree that a centralized one-world mining pool is something to avoid. Thus, let's use this thread as a place to mark potential selfish-pools before they gain too much momentum to be stopped.
Warning Signs: (Here are some warning signs that a pool has started using the
Selfish Mining Protocol)
1) Drop in the blocks produced by the selfish pool as they build up their private chain and submit more orphan blocks in the beginning.
2) Increase in orphan blocks by honest pools as the selfish pool releases their private block(s) immediately after the honest block was mined.
3) Drop in the global hash rate as consequences of #1 and #2.
4) Increase in the proportion of sequential blocks submitted by the selfish pool as they submit multiple blocks at a time to stay ahead of honest blocks.
5) Potential candidates should have had >= 25% of the network before going selfish.
Questions1) What other indicators can we look for?
2) Do you see signs that a pool is currently selfish-mining?
3) What can we do if it becomes clear that a pool is selfish mining to prevent them from coming into power? I.E. What are the best arguments to convince a miner to move from a selfish-mining pool to a (temporarily) less-profitable honest pool?
Let us be watchful!
