-addtag

[kjj]

I just did a trivial patch to my local 0.6.0rc1 code to add -addtag to the configuration options.  It adds arbitrary text to the COINBASE_FLAGS, exactly like -bip16 does, except provided in the config file or on the command line.

It appears to work.  My getmemorypool is showing 062f503253482f055b4b4a4a5d , exactly like it should.  I guess we'll know for sure in a month or two, or however long it takes my rigs to find a block.

So, I was wondering if there was a reason it isn't in the main tree.  Was it just that no one thought of it, or do we not want to make it easy for people to scribble up the chain?

[Pieter Wuille]

Typically a tag is used as a way of advertizing compatibility with a particular feature. It's not meaningful to add it without also implementing the necessary logic changes.

[kjj]

Yes, but lots of people use it for other things.  For example, grep "Mined by BTC Guild" in your blk0001.dat.

Right now, anyone that wants to sign their blocks like that has to use something else to do it (like PoolServerJ), or they have to edit and compile their own node.

I expect that as p2pool grows in popularity, there will be more interest in this sort of thing.