Questions about the consensus system of Bitcoin and the protocol rules that are consensus critical.
Questions tagged [consensus]
261 questions
50
votes
2 answers
What happens if two miners mine the next block at the same time?
The process of mining as described in the answer to this question is simultaneously repeated by multiple miners.
Is it possible for two miners to find the next block at the same instant? If it is, what happens if they do?
Emre Kenci
- 3,158
- 2
- 19
- 45
44
votes
3 answers
Why can’t the genesis block coinbase be spent?
According to the bitcoin wiki:
The first 50BTC block reward went to address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa, though this reward can't be spent due to a quirk in the way that the genesis block is expressed in the code (this may have been…
Nick ODell
- 29,184
- 11
- 69
- 129
28
votes
1 answer
What is proof-of-stake?
As we know one of the important mechanisms of Bitcoin is proof-of-work.
How does the concept of proof-of-stake work? How does it differ from proof-of-work?
Dr.Haribo
- 8,409
- 10
- 43
- 62
28
votes
2 answers
What does the term "Longest chain" mean?
What does the term "Longest chain" mean, as there is only one 'right' blockchain exists? How another longer chain would make the 'right' chain invalid?
vi.su.
- 1,842
- 5
- 23
- 41
23
votes
2 answers
What are the pros and cons of Ripple's consensus as compared with Bitcoin's proof-of-work?
One of the major differences between Bitcoin and Ripple is how they process transactions. I can think of three ways in which Ripple's "consensus" scheme is superior to Bitcoin's proof-of-work:
Less energy-intensive
No 51% attack
Faster…
Manish
- 2,012
- 20
- 33
20
votes
2 answers
How does one mine Stellar
I was able to mine Ripple for a time using boinc, will Stellar offer something like this? are there other ways to mine Stellar?
Phill Pafford
- 369
- 1
- 4
- 13
18
votes
3 answers
Are there alternatives for proof of work?
Bitcoin uses proof of work to secure the network, Ripple uses a global consensus system and PPCoin uses proof of stake.
Are there any known alternatives to the above methods?
Maestro
- 1,967
- 1
- 18
- 29
18
votes
1 answer
What happens when a miner does not claim all fees/generated coins?
Suppose that a miner for some reason has the generation transaction of their blocks not take all the possible coins. This can happen for a variety of reasons, almost all of which are bugs:
An off-by-one error makes them think that their block…
Daniel H
- 674
- 3
- 15
15
votes
3 answers
Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus - Why 33% threshold
Can somebody tell me why in dbft the threashold is 1/3 for malicious nodes? I mean that seems pretty abitrary. I have no problem if it is abitrary but is it?
Note: I'm not referring to Bitcoin. I chose this Forrm, because there is not game-theory or…
Ini
- 311
- 2
- 9
12
votes
2 answers
Bitcoin without mining - what needs to be implemented
I have read this related question - Bitcoin without mining and I am trying to understand the very basics of Bitcoin network and the blockchain.
I wonder, if we take the mining out of Bitcoin, what would we need to implement in order to make it a…
Wapac
- 1,044
- 7
- 16
12
votes
1 answer
How does Ethereum achieve consensus?
It appears that Ethereum will start out with PoW and switch to PoS later. If I remember correctly, the block interval is planned to be fairly short in Ethereum. How does Ethereum manage to achieve consensus?
Murch
- 71,155
- 33
- 180
- 600
12
votes
2 answers
Is there a maximum size of a scriptSig/scriptPubKey?
Previous research:
Transaction's maximum size
What is the maximum size of a transaction?
The maximum size of a standard transaction is 100k bytes.
Are there any consensus rules that prohibit scripts from being too large? I know each individual…
morsecoder
- 14,008
- 2
- 42
- 92
12
votes
2 answers
Bitcoin without mining
Several months ago I've stumbled an interesting question about the Ripple system: How does Ripple solve the double-spend problem?
Specifically about how double-spending is solved in Ripple. As you can see only @David Schwartz replied to my comments…
Luca Matteis
- 5,182
- 17
- 24
12
votes
3 answers
How can we trust supply won't be increased in 2140 by just a few lines of code?
How can we trust supply won't be increased by just a few lines of code?
thevikas
- 303
- 2
- 9
11
votes
1 answer
Did the introduction of VerifyScript cause a backwards incompatible change to consensus?
My question is about the changes to bitcoin done by commit range [a75560d8, 6ff5f718], and their effect on consensus.
Out of this range of four commits (all attributed to satoshi) during the dates July 30th-31st 2010, only the first and last commits…
arubi
- 1,834
- 7
- 21