diasporic on Nostr: Empty blocks are not so uncommon. I think last week there were 2 in a row. Makes me ...
Empty blocks are not so uncommon. I think last week there were 2 in a row.
Makes me want to read up on bitcoin's hash puzzle preimage resistance — in other words, given an empty block, one might leap to the conclusion that the winning miner perhaps precomputed the winning nonce in advance (like rainbow tables for password hashes), so quickly the miner could broadcast a valid block before they had a chance to receive any transactions to put in the block. Bitcoin is supposed to use a hashing algorithm which resists precomputing (preimaging). So this would naturally become a target for antagonistic cryptography efforts at a nation-state level, or "friendlies" who hope to improve Bitcoin's security by beating the antagonists to the punch.
Makes me want to read up on bitcoin's hash puzzle preimage resistance — in other words, given an empty block, one might leap to the conclusion that the winning miner perhaps precomputed the winning nonce in advance (like rainbow tables for password hashes), so quickly the miner could broadcast a valid block before they had a chance to receive any transactions to put in the block. Bitcoin is supposed to use a hashing algorithm which resists precomputing (preimaging). So this would naturally become a target for antagonistic cryptography efforts at a nation-state level, or "friendlies" who hope to improve Bitcoin's security by beating the antagonists to the punch.