Schedule
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Project 2 Part 2 is due next Thursday, 5 March. Submission is by email, send a PDF with your answers to questions 5-9.
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Keep thinking about ideas for your project. The first deliverable for the project will be a preliminary proposal due on March 19.
If you download the slides, they are present though. Hopefully, the player will be fixed someday.
Mining the Last Bitcoin
CAmount GetBlockValue(int nHeight, const CAmount& nFees)
{
CAmount nSubsidy = 50 * COIN;
int halvings = nHeight / Params().SubsidyHalvingInterval();
// Force block reward to zero when right shift is undefined.
if (halvings >= 64)
return nFees;
// Subsidy is cut in half every 210,000 blocks which will occur approximately every 4 years.
nSubsidy >>= halvings;
return nSubsidy + nFees;
}
Interestingly, the first commit version of this code
in github (29 August 2009) is missing the halvings >= 64 line we talked about in class:
int64 CBlock::GetBlockValue(int64 nFees) const
{
int64 nSubsidy = 50 * COIN;
// Subsidy is cut in half every 4 years
nSubsidy >>= (nBestHeight / 210000);
return nSubsidy + nFees;
}
Will a node running the early version of this code (assuming the global nBestHeight is equal to nHeight)
ever compute a
different block value than a node running the current version of the
code?
Python code for estimating block time: subsidy.py
> expect_block(6929999)
2132-05-19 00:50:38.200000
Why is it likely that the expected final bitcoin generation block is found in 2132 instead of 2140 (as estimated by 10 minute expected block generation rate)?
Selfish Mining
What are the risks and benefits of witholding a found block?
Based on the submarine cable map, where should you put your bitcoin mining operation?
Suppose you (and no other bitcoin nodes) had access to an under-Artic fiberoptic cable, providing faster than currently possible routes between Japan and Anchorage. Would this provide a valuable advantage in bitcoin? Would you prefer to have a fast microwave link between Japan and Finland?
This is the paper about selfish mining: Ittay Eyal and Emin Gün Sirer, Majority is not Enough: Bitcoin Mining is Vulnerable (Nov 2013). There has been a lot of debate about this paper and the claim that rational miners will behave selfishly:
- Game Theory and Bitcoin (Ed Felten)
- Response to Feedback on Selfish Mining (Eyal and Sirer's response to Felten's post and other arguments; read Felten's responses in the comments)
- Some Frequently Asked Questions on Selfish Mining (includes Simpson's clip)
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