#159062 - Empty Block?

[BkkCoins]

What's the point of this?
Can a miner/pool really create an empty block and receive 50 BTC for it?
What's to stop miner's from ignoring all transactions and just issuing empty blocks?

(Incidentally I noticed this because I had a transaction waiting a few minutes before this one and it didn't get in until the next block)

[1714132094]

1714132094

[1714132094]

1714132094

[notme]

Empty blocks happen frequently.  Sometimes there just aren't any transactions, and some miners have a minimum priority.  The prevention is transaction fees.  Why would you create an empty block when you can make an extra .0005 BTC per transaction?  As for your transaction, if it was high enough priority, the likely cause is pool delay.  The workers in the pools only ask for an updated "potential block" every X time units.  This causes a slight delay that can cause blocks to be found after your transaction, but without including it.  You can't just add in all available transactions after it is found because the proof of work verifies all data in the block.  If you change the block at all, the proof of work is no longer valid.

[DeepBit]

What's the point of this?
Can a miner/pool really create an empty block and receive 50 BTC for it?
What's to stop miner's from ignoring all transactions and just issuing empty blocks?

Yes, any miner can do this.
Nothing stops miners from ignoring all TXes and just issuing empty blocks. But if many miners would do that, people will set their TX fees to higher values and there will be someone to collect those fees :)
Also users may migrate from pools that do bad things.

Even empty blocks are useful to make blockchain longer and more secure.