Homework on Stale Blocks

Blockchain and Bitcoin 101
#281

  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
    Both blocks would be valid until the next block is created off of one of them, creating a longer chain.

  2. What is a stale block?
    An invalidated block from when the chain forks in favor of the longer chain,

  3. How do stale blocks occur?
    They occur from having more than one block being mined at the same time.

  4. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    To make sure the transaction wasn’t on a stale block.

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#282

  1. When two miners solve a block at the same time both of their blocks can be posted to the network and the blockchain splits but over time the one with the highest difficulty/longest transactions will be accepted and the other block will be dropped from the blockchain.

  2. A stale block is a block that drops from the blockchain.

  3. Stale blocks happen when another block is posted to the blockchain at the same time so the blockchain splits and one block is accepted while the other block is rejected thus resulting in a stale or orphan block.

  4. It is important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction because there is a small chance that the block that your transaction is posted on could be on a stale block which is dropped from the blockchain and resent to the mempool.

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#283

A stale block was mined and confirmed, but because someone else also mined a block at the same blockheight, it depends on wich of those 2 confirmed blocks a next block gets mined first (wich will be a longer chain) the other block will drop and all transactions that weren’t included in the other block will go back to the mempool

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#284

It has nothing to do with ‘longest transactions’ but longest chain. So it al depends on wich of those 2 blocks the next miner successfully mines a new block. But maybe you just mistyped :slight_smile:

#285
  1. until the next miner chooses on of the blocks to continue with, they are both valid
  2. a stale block is the block that was not chosen and was kicked out of the blockchain
  3. if there are more miners than one it can easiely happen that they both mine the block at the same time so they are both valid blocks to continue with
#286

  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
    A ‘race’ starts to see which blockchain will win by becoming the blockchain with the most PoW and propagating further in the network.

  2. What is a stale block?
    A stale block is a new block that is dropped or removed from the blockchain.

  3. How do stale blocks occur?
    When 2 different versions of the blockchain are in existence, one must be chosen as ‘true’ by the network via the most PoW. The one that is not chosen created the stale blocks that are in essence removed from the blockchain.

  4. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    To make sure that your transaction does not get forgotten in a ‘stale’ or ‘orphaned’ block and actually gets recorded on the blockchain.

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#287

  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
    There will be two different versions of the bitcoin blockchain. But this problem will be finally solved if another block is found by a miner. This will create a version of the blockchain, which has one more block than the other version. So the longer version of the blockchain will be accepted, while the shorter version of the blockchain will be dropped.

  2. What is a stale block?
    Stale blocks belong the above mentioned shorter version of the blockchain. Although stale blocks are valid blocks, they will be dropped by the network. So the miners of a stale block will not get any block reward, because his version of the blockchain had been dropped by the network, while another version had been accepted.

  3. How do stale blocks occur?
    Please refer to the answer of question number 2.

  4. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    In order to be sure that a certain transaction had been accepted by the bitcoin network one should wait until this transaction has 6 confirmations. This means that on top of the block containing your transaction are 5 additional blocks confirming your transaction. With 6 confirmations you can be assured that the bitcoin network will not switch to another version (fork), which may not contain your transaction. In practical use the number of confirmations depends on the value of the transaction. For buying a cup of coffee using Bitcoin 1 or 2 confirmations are already sufficient. But if you buy a car using BTC you should wait for a sufficient number of confirmations, which is 6, to be sure that your transaction will remain in the Bitcoin network.

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#288

The longest chain wins.

During block mining, these are the blocks which lost their transactions, got invalidated, because other miners made calculations faster.

In the competition of the miners, when one losing the block with all transactions in it because by the Proof of Work other miner got validated. So the invalidated blocks became stale blocks.

Helps with security issues

#289

  1. Two valid paths of the blockchain are created.

  2. A stale block is a block that has been discarded because it was on a shorter chain

  3. Stale blocks occur when two paths have been created on the blockchain, and then one of them becomes longer than the other and therefore recognized as true.

  4. It is important to wait about 6 confirmations to make sure that your block does not become stale or orphaned.

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#290

  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
    Then the nodes mempools at the areas close to miners are pulled to create two new chainlinks on which only one of them will prevail

  2. What is a stale block?
    Being a block that was discarded by not being chosen by the next miner

  3. How do stale blocks occur?
    By the very situation when two niners solve in full synch then they locate mempool data from their area and when one is chosen by a miner the becomes stale.

  4. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    Its safe to say that after six blocks we have an assurance which is the longest link and which data goes back to the mempool

#291
  1. If two miners solve a block at the same time, then it all depends on which of the two the next block will be linked to. In general, among the two, the one which has put the more mining effort will be selected by the network as the correct one while the other one will be dropped.The longest chain, which is the one putting more effort, always wins.
  2. A stale block is a block dropped as a result of the process described above. All the transactions which were included in it are directed back to th mempool.
  3. Stale blocks happen when two miners solve a block at the same time. It is not possible for both blocks to be added to the blockchain, within the next 6 blocks added, one of the two will be dropped becoling a stale or orphaned block.
  4. It is important to wait for 6 confirmations to be sure that the block your transactions are in is not dropped from the chain.
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#292

1.Both blocks communicate to the nearest nodes to them - until one block wins out as the next legitimate block on the blockchain.

  1. A stale block is the block that gets sent back to the mempool because the next block chose to connect to the nodes that the stale block was not validated by yet.

  2. When two blocks get released onto the blockchain at once some nodes only have a chance to validate one of the blocks. Other nodes have validated the other block that came out at the same time. So there are now two versions of truth on the blockchain at once. Then the next block comes out and has to choose which node has the right version of the block chain. Which ever block is not in the “chosen version” becomes the stale block and is returned to the mempool to start again.

  3. It’s important to make sure your block transaction was accepted and is on the blockchain before you try to execute another transaction.

#293

  1. The network will accept the longest block that shows the most proof of work and the other block will become stale and return to the transactions within to the mempool.

  2. A block that has not been appended to the blockchain and returned to the mempool.

  3. Stale blocks are blocks that were once in the blockchain but were dropped because in favour of another version of the blockchain that was longer (more proof of work)

  4. To ensure that the block doesn’t get dropped. More confirmations increases the length of the block and will be accepted as a more truthful version.

#294
  1. . The chain forks temporarily when two miners solve a block at the same time and the longest chain is confirmed on the network . The transactions from the stale / orphan block are returned to the mempool to be mined and confirmed again .
  2. A stale block is the fork block that was not accepted , or confirmed on the chain .
  3. Stale blocks occur when two miners solve the block at the same time and only one is registered as the truth and added to the blockchain and the stale/orphan block goes back to the mempool .
  4. It is important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed ( 6 to be safe) to make sure transactions are confirmed and not on the stale block sent back to mempool .
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#295
  1. Other miners will work on the block closes to it and eventually one of the chains will be shorter than the other which drops the short one because of the " longest chain " rule of blockchain. The other block that have been dropped, also known as stale blocks, will be returned to the mempool.

2.A block that was once valid by a group of nodes until a longer block appeared to which they dropped that said block.

  1. It occurs when 2 miners solve the nonce at the same time and therefore result in 2 blockchains being simultaneously mined by other miners. One of the chains in dropped and is so called stale.

4.because you could be a stale block waiting to be thrown away, but after 4-6 its safe to say its confirmed because then more then 4-6 blocks are validated meaning there are no stale blocks.

#296

  1. There will be two versions of the blockchain.

  2. A stale block is a valid block but part of a shorter chain, and will be deleted.

  3. It occures when two blocks are accepted, and splits the chain in two new chains.

  4. Otherwise you might end up with being part of a shorter chain that will be deleted.

COMMENTS: This really is confusing and will need a better explanation. Even though it´s not very significant for the greater understanding. If a block is accepted all transactions is verified and confirmed, but how can you wait and confirm till new blocks are mined??

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#297

  1. The next miner that will block the following block will have his own version of the blockchain and will add his block on that one. The longer blockchain will be accepted by all the nodes and the other one will be dropped out and all the transactions will go back to the mempool.

  2. A stale block is a block on a blockchain that is no longer the longest, so it’s transactions will be cancelled and going back to the mempool.

  3. They occur, when 2 miners get nounces below the target and mine blocks simultaneously. The longer chain will always be the accepted one and the shortest one will be dropped out and those blocks will be called stale blocks.

4- So we are sure that our transaction is not in a stale block and is sent back to the mempool.

#298

  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
    The blockchain will fork. The longer chain with the most PoW will win

  2. What is a stale block?
    The block which did not win (see Nr. 1) will be put back in the mempool

  3. How do stale blocks occur?
    The parallel creation of two blocks. The block which has less PoW (shorter chain) and is dropped

  4. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    To be sure that the block is not been dropped off a temporarily existing chain. Therefor 6 confirmations (blocks) should ensure the validity of the newly created block

#299
  1. Only one of the 2 blocks will be added the other Block will be dropped when the new block is added and picks one over the other

2.A block that has been dropped and returns to the memopool

3.When 2 miners solve the block at the same time

  1. Waiting ten min and 6 confirmations assures the block has been updated competly The longer chain wins
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#300

  1. They both get added to the blockchain on different nodes.

  2. A block that was added on some nodes but was later dropped from the blockchain.

  3. When some nodes add a block that gets dropped from the blockchain in favor of a longer blockchain.

  4. The transaction could be invalidated if the block that your transaction was included in becomes orphaned.

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