What if Bitcoin had 1 minute block time and 1 minute difficulty retarget

[stompix]

Sure, you can speed up confirmations, but you do so at the cost of decentralization and security.
Decreased block time and/or bigger blocks requires more bandwidth and processing power. You then make it less profitable for smaller miners to continue mining, and centralize the hash rate to larger miners.

~

640k blocks should be enough for anyone, right? And yeah, I know Gates never actually said that, but still.
Satoshi chooses the 10 minutes for block propagation time reasons in 2009, still thinking that is the norm is like ripping videos to 600mb so they can fit CDs.

Let's be honest about it, when he created bitcoin the average download speed in the US was 4 Mbps and now its up to 80 Mbps and the US is not really the best example when it comes to speed. Storage? Common even with this crisis in computer parts price you can still get a 1TB m2 for 100$, if decentralization will fall because 10k people can't afford 50$ drives how the hell is the network protected right now? We're bragging that an attacker has to spend billions for 51% but at the same time the risk is about $500k?

Those numbers and concerns were valid at that time, if they would be true by now ETH would have forked 2 thousand times already and so would have LTC. I'm no fan of large blocks and 5 seconds blocks but at the same time, I feel like sooner or later something has to be done for the on-chain capacity, remember that in order to use LN you still need space in those blocks.

[teosanru]

What if Bitcoin had 1 minute block time and 1 minute difficulty re-target?  Wouldn't we get instant transactions and better network speed?

1. I don't think now it's possible unless we have a hard fork that obviously will make an alternative BTC and won't change the already existing one.

2. It would make the energy concerns of people even larger. Because for the same difficult people will fight for more blocks a day but the reward will be lowered and might even make mining nonprofitable. Moreover, I am not sure about BTC but for some unpopular currencies chances are that we might also have a lot of empty blocks. Which means miner will use all their computing power to confirm zero transactions. BTC because of it's wide usage might not face this issue.

[TangentC]

Well then Bitcoin is insecure, as the old checkpoints were never removed according to your analysis.

It's secure as long as the majority of the hash rate isn't owned by an entity that wants to attack the network and that's all it is. If someone gained that much computational power, no checkpoints could secure Bitcoin.

And that is where you are wrong,
checkpoints can secure a coin against a 99% attack rewriting anything prior to the checkpoint.

Let me know when you get the devs to remove them from the bitcoin source code.  

[o_e_l_e_o]

Well then Bitcoin is insecure, as the old checkpoints were never removed according to your analysis.

Because I've already explained why the checkpoints are still there, and it has nothing to do with preventing 51% attacks or chain re-orgs. They prevent flooding of low difficulty blocks. See the quote from Pieter Wuille above. Or this one from Greg Maxwell: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/7591#issuecomment-188369540

it also opens an improbable but now not impossible task of bitcoin blockchain being rewritten back to the genesis block.

Sure. And if someone can rewrite the history of bitcoin back to the genesis block, back to the last checkpoint in 2014, or back to last month, then the outcome is always the same - bitcoin's security model is broken, trust is destroyed, and bitcoin is worthless.

The checkpoints we have are, on average, ~5 months apart. You honestly think if someone rewrote bitcoin history for the last 5 months everyone would shrug their shoulders and say "Well, at least they didn't rewrite more than that!" and carry on as if nothing had happened?

checkpoints can secure a coin against a 99% attack rewriting anything prior to the checkpoint.

And having a centralized security model, which is effectively what checkpoints are since it puts the decision regarding what is the longest chain in the hands of a small group of developers, is 100% effective against any rewriting attack. Why not just use a bank?

[TangentC]

Well then Bitcoin is insecure, as the old checkpoints were never removed according to your analysis.

Because I've already explained why the checkpoints are still there, and it has nothing to do with preventing 51% attacks or chain re-orgs. They prevent flooding of low difficulty blocks. See the quote from Pieter Wuille above. Or this one from Greg Maxwell: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/7591#issuecomment-188369540

it also opens an improbable but now not impossible task of bitcoin blockchain being rewritten back to the genesis block.

Sure. And if someone can rewrite the history of bitcoin back to the genesis block, back to the last checkpoint in 2014, or back to last month, then the outcome is always the same - bitcoin's security model is broken, trust is destroyed, and bitcoin is worthless.

The checkpoints we have are, on average, ~5 months apart. You honestly think if someone rewrote bitcoin history for the last 5 months everyone would shrug their shoulders and say "Well, at least they didn't rewrite more than that!" and carry on as if nothing had happened?

You can't have it both ways ,
on 1 hand they do something valuable and on the other hand they are worthless.
If they are worthless , remove them.
If not, not using more is naive.

You honestly think anything but a major collusion of mining pools could rewrite the last two days.
Which are why rolling checkpoints have value in giving real finality that not even colluding mining pools could harm.

Protecting Bitcoin transaction data should be of paramount concern to all bitcoin users,
but thanks to bitcoiner cultist beliefs it is taboo.

FYI:
If your Father and Mother purchased a house with bitcoin, would you not want it finality assured,
not at the whim of a 51% attacker from an indefinite time frame wiping out their purchase.
That is why Satoshi included checkpoints, to make the improbable task an impossible task to protect people.
Failure to recognize that for a bitcoiner cultist false belief puts everyone using bitcoin at unneeded risk.

checkpoints can secure a coin against a 99% attack rewriting anything prior to the checkpoint.

And having a centralized security model, which is effectively what checkpoints are since it puts the decision regarding what is the longest chain in the hands of a small group of developers, is 100% effective against any rewriting attack. Why not just use a bank?

You know so little about checkpoints, if you did some research , you would not be so wrong all the time.
A rolling checkpoint is based on a certain number of blocks passing , say two days worth.
Only the mining or staking determined those block, there is no centralized control, so drop your trigger words and learn.

[o_e_l_e_o]

You can't have it both ways ,
on 1 hand they do something valuable and on the other hand they are worthless.

I'm only going to repeat myself one more time. They protect against an unrelated low difficulty flood attack. They are worthless when protecting against a 51% attack. This is not a difficult concept. Adding more is unnecessary to protect against the low difficulty attack they already protect against.

You honestly think anything but a major collusion of mining pools could rewrite the last two days.

If the last 2 days and ~300 blocks can be rewritten, then proof of work is no longer secure, checkpoints or no checkpoints.


I just got round to checking your post history and realizing that you are an alt account of a well known BCash shill, and one that I've had this exact conversation with before. It's clear now why you are so pro-checkpoints, since BCash has been successfully 51% attacked on more than one occasion in the past.

[TangentC]

You can't have it both ways ,
on 1 hand they do something valuable and on the other hand they are worthless.

I'm only going to repeat myself one more time. They protect against an unrelated low difficulty flood attack. They are worthless when protecting against a 51% attack. This is not a difficult concept. Adding more is unnecessary to protect against the low difficulty attack they already protect against.

You honestly think anything but a major collusion of mining pools could rewrite the last two days.

If the last 2 days and ~300 blocks can be rewritten, then proof of work is no longer secure, checkpoints or no checkpoints.


I just got round to checking your post history and realizing that you are an alt account of a well known BCash shill, and one that I've had this exact conversation with before. It's clear now why you are so pro-checkpoints, since BCash has been successfully 51% attacked on more than one occasion in the past.

Yes yes, once it can not be denied how wrong you are, then I must be a troll.

So was Satoshi also a troll, since the checkpoints were his idea.

If so , I am in good company with satoshi,

Enjoy your bitcoiner cultist thoughts , no matter how far removed from reality they are.

My Conversation on checkpoints with Bitcoiners is over , as there is just no hope to break thru your false beliefs.
Tell your BTC cultist Pastor Maxwell, he is still wrong.  

FYI:
Total Shame Reason and Logic get crowed out by false cultist beliefs in these forums,
but it is what it is. 

[FutureSeeker2021]

It doesn't really matter how fast or slow your confirmations are; what matters is how much work an attacker would have to do to reverse your transaction.

Yes, but in howmanyconfs.com it says that the equivalent time of 6 Bitcoin confirmation blocks would be 375 Litecoin ones, while it should say 24. (1 BTC block = 4 LTC blocks)

I see what your saying