Re:Bitcoin War: The First Real Threat to Bitcoin?
by palish on Saturday March 17, 2012 @07:44PM
(#3718584)
Whoa, that's bizarre: http://screencast.com/t/TA5fF8CDf3
And look at the timestamp on #171618: http://screencast.com/t/Kzzwiyi9Mz ... The timestamp reads "21:35:01". But the timestamp of the previous block is "21:35:35". So it's "in the past, by half a minute". What's up with that? I mean, I could understand a timestamp uncertainty of a few seconds when discovering new blocks ... but that's a discrepency of over half a minute. (Maybe this is a totally insignificant observation -- I have no idea. I'm just pointing it out.)
Bigger question: what's up with those "1-transaction blocks"? Could you talk a little bit more about that / why that's an indication that someone is cheating? Also, do you have any idea why they're doing this / what the benefit is?
The confirmation task can be easily paralelised - therefore, what is usually done is creating a whole pool of computers that together work on the transaction confirmation task, then the main computer announces the confirmation and is remembered in the blockchain. That's what these so-called mining pools do.
You can browse the blockchain by yourself here http://blockexplorer.com/
There is always at least 1 transaction in the block with the amount 50 - that's the "new" bitcoins that the person "mined" - those weren't previously in the system, you got them for the confirmation. Someone is cheating the system by creating empty blocks with only this transaction.