I have done some work on incentives arising from block propagation times and it
turns out that Bitcoin is already quite good at establishing the primacy of
blocks by time despite what people think. Part of the reason for this is the
way that partitions on the network evolve as a block is propagated. Typically
at the moment, blocks reach over 50% of the network in 5 seconds. Reach being
defined as a node receiving and validating a block. If we make an assumption
that the hashing power of the network is uniformly distributed over the nodes
(I know it is not a good assumption but can discuss it off the list). Then 50%
of the hashing power are already building a block that builds on top of the
block that is already circulating. The probability that there is a collision on
the network therefore falls fast and then the probability that the miner who
propagated the first block wins given a collision occurs is rising. I think
that block propagation times might actually be a bigger issue for miners who
are less well connected to the network in the sense that they spend more time
mining redundant problems and during that time may find blocks to compete with
blocks that are already spreading throughout the network.
I have a paper that models this more formally and has some numerical
simulations but cannot publish it on the internet at present (University
Regulations) but I am happy to share a version privately if anyone is
interested.
Best,
Jonathan
--
Jonathan Levin
Co-Founder Coinometrics
http://www.coinometrics.com/
Postgraduate Economist | St Antony's College | Oxford University
@jony_levin
@Coinometrics
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE
Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos.
Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available
Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free."
http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs
_______________________________________________
Bitcoin-development mailing list
Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
