Potentially miners attack?

[BlackHatCoiner]

As I pointed out above the pool doesn't receive the block reward+fee, the miners do. The pool itself only take a percentage for the service they provide. That means if the pool had indeed paid $400 in spam fees, they have indeed lost money.

This is correct, and something I hadn't thought of. In order for the attack to pass, the miners have to agree that they will not be paid for every transaction in the candidate block. This is quite of a big disincentive already. Miners must share the fees equally to the work they've provided, otherwise the pool has no incentive to not arbitrarily lie about some, and take their income without explanation.

[1715408595]

1715408595

[jrrsparkles]

Since February 2023 mempool almost not empty and i thought that 2-3 biggest pool can spam mempool with low-fee transactions just to get more fee.
Just check out this block: https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000421dea73b197dec0c1c57a4620c274b7b048c1786c35b
all block is full of $0.08 cent transactions with $0.24 cents fee.

Even if what you are saying is true still it is not harming the Bitcoin users, the fee required to make your transaction is 7sat/vbyte which is considerably low. If they really want to push the network to increase the TX fees then they need to fill the blocks with high TX fees transaction which will obviously going to be a loss for them so they can continue to spam the network with low fee TX and make less profit than they used to be or just do nothing at all to make more profits.

[y.baidiuk]

Since February 2023 mempool almost not empty and i thought that 2-3 biggest pool can spam mempool with low-fee transactions just to get more fee.
Just check out this block: https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000421dea73b197dec0c1c57a4620c274b7b048c1786c35b
all block is full of $0.08 cent transactions with $0.24 cents fee.

Even if what you are saying is true still it is not harming the Bitcoin users, the fee required to make your transaction is 7sat/vbyte which is considerably low. If they really want to push the network to increase the TX fees then they need to fill the blocks with high TX fees transaction which will obviously going to be a loss for them so they can continue to spam the network with low fee TX and make less profit than they used to be or just do nothing at all to make more profits.

I think best what we can do is propagate to avoid big pull, because this attack has to be created from 2-3 biggest pool and that attack with fee which a bit lower than average.
Hopefully, lightning network and liquid network will reduce payload of mempool with enough power to prevent such attack on feature.
Big disadvantages for miners which i see with attack like this that hashrete still grove up what means that miners grove up potential concurrent for themselves.
If this problem will rise for next 5 years (till 2028) we will need new discussion and probably new spam detection software which should filter same amount with same fee transaction and some bitcoins freeze if that transferred in last 2 days.

This block is a good example of this type https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000173b690c0f0cdef738eebaaafea82b75c95f253a56f2f

[ranochigo]

block has over 5k tx
imagining it made 5000 tx of 294sat is less than $400
block reward of 6.25= $163,000
seems the pool still made money

Not really. That is the monetary cost, but in economics then we would consider the opportunity cost. Hence, if there is another 5k transactions that has a tx fee of 1sat more, then you would have lost 5k sat by not including those transactions.

Fortunately, same as the prisoner dilemma problem, the collusion is harder to pull on with this much money and unpredictability involved.

[franky1]

block has over 5k tx
imagining it made 5000 tx of 294sat is less than $400
block reward of 6.25= $163,000
seems the pool still made money

Not really. That is the monetary cost, but in economics then we would consider the opportunity cost. Hence, if there is another 5k transactions that has a tx fee of 1sat more, then you would have lost 5k sat by not including those transactions.

Fortunately, same as the prisoner dilemma problem, the collusion is harder to pull on with this much money and unpredictability involved.

weird.. your worrying over a 1sat increase of 5000tx = $1.31 total
and worried about 5000tx of 294sat =$400 but still ignoring the $160,000 income

the concern over $401.31 vs $400 is not something pools think about much because the $160,000 is still more important

we are still in the era of block reward=income, fee= bonus.. we have yet to reach a threshold where the mindset flips to
fee=massive commissions where the reward is the negligable unimportant income

do you know that most pool manager economics thoughts are that if they can create their own set of TX they own. they do not need to worry about including other peoples tx. and thus by not having the worry of accidentality pre-collating transactions that may end up in someone else block(thus having to stop and re-collate a new set of tx). means they can shave a few seconds on their own block attempts and thus have a greater chance of winning the latest fastest block. thus winning the $160k with greater chance
yep some pools sacrifice the small fee income to get better luck solving more blocks faster to get the larger main reward

[ranochigo]

weird.. your worrying over a 1sat increase of 5000tx = $1.31 total
and worried about 5000tx of 294sat =$400 but still ignoring the $160,000 income

the concern over $401.31 vs $400 is not something pools think about much because the $160,000 is still more important

we are still in the era of block reward=income, fee= bonus.. we have yet to reach a threshold where the mindset flips to
fee=massive commissions where the reward is the negligable unimportant income

That is not how economics work. Well, it would be logical if you're talking about some ulterior motives that compels miners to only have transactions which has low fees. In a game theory approach, if you have agents that wants to maximize their profits, then they must include transactions with fees. The extent of which should be as much as possible, because people would hop to another pool if they don't.

The block reward isn't negligible income and it is definitely included in the PnL calculations before we invest (ie. we estimate how much of our profits could come from fees). There's a pretty big difference between making money, which is in your case making $160,000 but not making $160,001 when there is little to no cost.

do you know that most pool manager economics thoughts are that if they can create their own set of TX they own. they do not need to worry about including other peoples tx. and thus by not having the worry of accidentality pre-collating transactions that may end up in someone else block(thus having to stop and re-collate a new set of tx). means they can shave a few seconds on their own block attempts and thus have a greater chance of winning the latest fastest block. thus winning the $160k with greater chance
yep some pools sacrifice the small fee income to get better luck solving more blocks faster to get the larger main reward

That's not true at all. If a miner were to only include their transactions, they stand to not benefit at all because they are paying their own fees. I think you're talking about empty blocks: Faster propagation, no risk of invalid blocks without validation.

Block validation is in the range of a few milliseconds. Sure, you can send an empty block template but you would never send a block template that has tons of tiny transactions. That only slows down your propagation while receiving virtually no benefits.

[franky1]

weird.. your worrying over a 1sat increase of 5000tx = $1.31 total
and worried about 5000tx of 294sat =$400 but still ignoring the $160,000 income

the concern over $401.31 vs $400 is not something pools think about much because the $160,000 is still more important

we are still in the era of block reward=income, fee= bonus.. we have yet to reach a threshold where the mindset flips to
fee=massive commissions where the reward is the negligable unimportant income

That is not how economics work. Well, it would be logical if you're talking about some ulterior motives that compels miners to only have transactions which has low fees. In a game theory approach, if you have agents that wants to maximize their profits, then they must include transactions with fees. The extent of which should be as much as possible, because people would hop to another pool if they don't.

firstly MINERS are just ASIC's they just hash
they have no control of the transaction selection... dont confuse miners with pools

secondly there are pools that offer miner reimbursements as 0 fee but 100% reward. or X% fee 9X% reward whereby fee's are still negligible to miners because the cut the pool takes would offset any gains from fees so many miners dont pool hop depending on if a pool does or does not include transactions. most miners stick to a pool that has best luck of block solving no matter how many tx's are included, no matter if its high or low fee tx included.

you will surprise yourself when you see that there is a lack of pool hopping happening when a pool collates low fee's or does empty blocks. because most miners are not watching block explorers to check how many transactions are in a block. they just count block solves/wins and how many shares of that block reward they get

they care more about how many shares of a reward they get in regards to how many other asics are on the same pool and how many block solves are done by pool per hour.. they dont transaction fee count

[Wind_FURY]

What are you thinking about it ?

Miners are not the only ones benefiting from higher transaction fees but some altcoins and exchanges, in 2017 there was a high volume of hashtags to support the BCH hypothesis and prove that Bitcoin is not suitable for everyday transactions.

Miners are the weaker party in the spam attack, as they do not make a profit from it, but on the contrary, the spam transactions that they make make the block full, while it could have been to include more transactions in that block and earn more fees.

If you think the fees are high, stop sending transactions.

It's ironic, and laughable, that those who support the "BCash hypothesis" is making an example of something that gives a stronger debate to regulate the size of the blocks.

[Flexystar]

Eh, that is a new learning for me from the community. I never thought there would be way out to spam the pool by doing multiple transactions with lower fees. However, I do not understand the ideology behind this? What is the benefit to whoever this person or entity is and doing such random transactions with penny transfers? What is in it for them.

As I read there is one answer only miners can benefit from this because they will have increased transactions and also they will be able to raise the fee structure if pool gets congested. I am not sure how true that could be but it seems that they are making full use of this loop hole. Is it a loop hole and we can't really do anything about this?

block has over 5k tx
imagining it made 5000 tx of 294sat is less than $400
block reward of 6.25= $163,000
seems the pool still made money

As I pointed out above the pool doesn't receive the block reward+fee, the miners do. The pool itself only take a percentage for the service they provide. That means if the pool had indeed paid $400 in spam fees, they have indeed lost money.

From this post it does seem like miners benefit more than the pool from this strategy.

Anyways, what about the users, aren't they getting looted in the war of pool and miners? 

[ranochigo]

firstly MINERS are just ASIC's they just hash
they have no control of the transaction selection... dont confuse miners with pools

What feeds the miner? There is something that has to build the merkle root and the block headers. Whoever runs the ASIC has to make deliberate decisions to include or exclude transactions.

secondly there are pools that offer miner reimbursements as 0 fee but 100% reward. or X% fee 9X% reward whereby fee's are still negligable to miners becasue the cut the pool takes would offset any gains from fees so many miners dont pool hop depending on if a pool does or does not include transactions. most miners stick to a pool that has best luck of block solving no matter how many tx's are included, no matter if its high or low fee tx included.

Exactly. Miners hop to pools that provides the most profits. Pools are not charity, they do not give out money for free and there is always a catch if they are seemingly running it for free. That is also the naive approach, for which no one actually adopts. Luck does matter and miners can pool hop. The profitability is still attributed to the fees being paid out from the blocks, and there is no denying that. If they don't, please point out a pool that doesn't include the highest fees.

you will surprise yourself when you see that there is a lack of pool hopping happening when a pool low fee's or empty blocks. because most miners are not watching blockexplorers to check how many transactions are in a block. they just count block solves/wins and how many shares of that block reward they get

they care more about how many shares of a reward they get in regards to how many other asics are on the same pool and how many block solves are done by pool per hour.. they dont transaction fee count

They don't but the observation of a lower potential profit is far more obvious in the long run. It doesn't matter what an individual miner perceives. A rational miner always maximizes profit, and empty blocks or intentionally including lower fees isn't one of them. If that is, then pools would be actively doing it.

Concluding note: No free lunch in the world and each miner is paying for their services to provide them in the form of a mining pool. If you collect less fees, then you are receiving less profit, because your fees are pegged in the miner's revenue. Additionally, including low fee transactions or not including transactions doesn't affect stale rate to any noticeable extent.