Homework on Stale Blocks

Blockchain and Bitcoin 101
#4615
  1. The chain forks temporarily
  2. A block that gets put back into mempool in favor of chain with more POW
  3. Stale blocks occur after a fork is resolved with a longer chain
  4. In case of a stale block occurring.
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#4616
  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
    The chain split into two, the miner with the longer chain win.
  2. What is a stale block?
    Stale block is a block that was in the blockchain for a period of time but then got drop because there was other version of the block that was longer.
  3. How do stale blocks occur?
    This occur when two miners tried to link a block, it creates two new links to the prev blocks, but the one with the longer chain is added to blockchain, and the other block is the slate block drop back to the mempool.
  4. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    Some block might a slate block and dropped back to the mempool. this results to longer time for confirmation of transaction.
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#4617

  1. Multiple valid chains are created.

  2. Stale blocks are blocks that were previously valid are dropped.

  3. Stale blocks are the result of previously valid blocks on a multiple chain being dropped when an alternative chain is preferred as the longest or dominant chain.

  4. Ideally good practice waits for six blocks to be confirmed to ensure your block is not dropped and the txn is finalised.

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#4618
  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
    The network resolves this conflict between two sources of truth with the longer chain rule.
  2. What is a stale block?
    If network has multiple same time added blocks the only one block will be added and others will be rejected and they will called stale blocks.
  3. How do stale blocks occur?
    In case network rejects the block.
  4. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    Because the real world blockchain network is huge and it will need time for a synchronising between nodes.
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#4619

What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?

  • The blockchain version that has the longer/more difficult proof-of-work (i.e., has utilized more processing power to create) will be selected, while the counterpart will be dropped and and the stale block will return to the mempool

What is a stale block?

  • A block that has once been ‘confirmed’ and added into the blockchain, but is then removed into the mempool as another blockchain with higher proof-of-work is selected

How do stale blocks occur?

  • Stale blocks occur when two, or more, miners identify the ‘target’ at approximately the same time effectively propagating different blocks into the network creating different versions of the ledger. Once the appropriate blockchain has been selected and the remaining block returned to the mempool, stale block occurs

Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?

  • There is a chance that the block is not confirmed as another block might be selected with the longer proof of work
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#4620

  1. You need to wait 6 confirmations to be sure your transaction is in the longest chain. The longest Chain winns

  2. Blocks that are created but by time are not in the longest chain and therefor the transactions inside this stale block go back into the memepool

  3. If 2 or more miners find a block but this block doesnt ends up in the longest chain.

  4. Because if you have not enough confirmations your transaction could be in a stale block and therefor go back to the mempool and has to be confirmed again.

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#4621
  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
  • The two miners will start to mine their own blocks at the same time. However, eventually only 1 miner will be chosen (the longest block will be chosen). The other miner’s block will become stale blocks and will be dropped eventually from the network.
  1. What is a stale block?
    1. A stale block is the block that was in the blockchain but then dropped because another block that was produced at the same time was part of a longer chain.
  1. How do stale blocks occur?
    1. Stale blocks occur when a block was valid for a while because 2 were produced with the same version of the truth but then dropped because the blockchain continued on another block.
  1. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    1. 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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#4622
  1. When two miners solve a block at the same time you get two sources of truth.
  2. A stale block is an orphaned block that has been rejected from the blockchain.
  3. A stale block occurs when one of the two sources of truth doesn’t get the next block added to it, in the case that the competing chain gets the next block added to it.
  4. Having more than one confirmation ensures that the previous block has been accepted and doesn’t become orphaned as in the scenario described above.
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#4623

[quote=“ivan, post:1, topic:8434”]

  • What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
  • What is a stale block?
    A block that has been abandoned by the network in spite of having been part of a blockcahain because a competing block has emerged.
  • How do stale blocks occur?
    A new block may emerge that makes another blockchain longer than a competing one, resulting in the shorter-chain block being dropped. The dropped block is the stale block.
  • Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    To give the network sufficient time to propagate data without creating too many stale blocks.
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#4624

  1. The chain splits into two true versions pending which version will have the longest chain based on PoW.

  2. A block that is dropped from the chain and its transactions transferred back to the mempool in favor of the block on the longest chain by PoW.

  3. Stale blocks occur when there are two versions of the blockchain and the network picks the version with the most block by PoW hence discarding the stale block.

  4. To avoid cases of a stale block

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#4625
  1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?

The chain splits into two chains. The first minor who made the longest chain wins, and the other miner’s block is discarded.

  1. What is a stale block?

It is the discarded block due to split chains.

  1. How do stale blocks occur?

It happens when two minors append a block at the same time.

  1. Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?

It is important to wait for 6 confirmations to make sure that the block holding your transaction is not dropped.

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#4626

  1. When two miners solve a block at the same time, the block with the highest difficulty level (longest proof of work ) wins while the losers block gets eliminated and translation data gets sent back to the mempool.

  2. Stale blocks are blocks that used to be on the chain but were dropped/ eliminated and are no longer active.

  3. Stale blocks occur when the loser block gets dropped from the chain( lower difficulty level).

  4. The network waits at least 10 minutes to have another 6 transactions be verified in case that block gets dropped before the networks can register it.

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#4627
  1. The blockchain will fork into two and one will eventually be dropped.
  2. The blocks in the dropped fork(one with shortest chain) are called stale blocks.
  3. When two or more different blocks were created and appended at the same position of the blockchain by different miners, the blockchain would fork. Eventually, the fork with the shortest length would be dropped, this is how stale blocks occur.
  4. The transaction might be part of a stale block, and will be dropped. So, it is recommended to wait for six block confirmations when sending/receiving transactions.
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#4628

What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
Two version of the set of blocks are mined in progress until the version with significantly more proof of work wins.

What is a stale block?
Blocks that were in their version of the blockchain but got dropped from the winning version of the blockchain.

How do stale blocks occur?
Stale blocks when their version of the blockchain gets dropped because another version of the blockchain had more proof of work and won.

Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
6 confirmations ensures that your block does not get dropped and becomes a stale or orphaned block.

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#4629

1. What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
At the end one block will win and become the longest blockchain. And the other will be dropped and we called Orphaned blocks or Stale block

2. What is a stale block?
It is the block in the shortest blockchain which has been dropped.

3. How do stale blocks occur?
When this block takes a part in the shortest blockchain

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 block is the longest blockchain and to avoid being dropped and becoming orphaned.

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#4630
  • What happens in the bitcoin network when two miners solve a block at the same time?
    [Ans] This may lead to two different versions of the blockchain to exist in the network before reconciliation happens and the longest chain is selected and propagated
  • What is a stale block?
    [ans] Stale/orphaned blocks are blocks that were in the chain for some time but later were dropped and their transactions are returned to mempool.
  • How do stale blocks occur?
    [Ans] This happens when more miners are there solving the puzzle and append it to the blockchain. This will lead to 2 versions of blockchain to exist. Eventually, with consensus, the longest chain would be accepted by all and another chain will get rejected. These blocks are the one which was accepted once but later rejected and becomes stale or orphaned blocks.
  • Why is it important to wait for more than one block to be confirmed when sending or receiving a transaction?
    [ans] This goes with the native process of adjustment done by the blockchain network and nodes. In the case where multiple version exists, a reconciliation would be done and the longest chain would be accepted by all. In practice waiting for more confirmation to come before considering confirmation for a transaction allows mitigating the scenario of a transaction falling into Stale/Orphaned blocks.
#4631

Question : What happens to Block reward and transaction fee in case of stale or orphaned block. Or is it the reward is remitted after waiting for sometime when reconciliation happens and only one chain is accepted ?

#4632

The block reward is part of the transaction list called a coinbase and gets dropped along with the rest of the txs.

#4633

  1. There is a short period of time when both blocks are valid. This is because once a miner has solved a block, they need to broadcast the block to the rest of the nodes/miners which takes time. What then happens is if 2 miners are broadcasting a different, but both valid, block, then the next block that is mined will help determine which one is valid. This is in simple terms based on the miner of who they received/accepted the block first.

  2. The block that gets dropped from the above scenario is called a stale/dropped block.

3, They occur when the next series of blocks that are mined including the competing block and not theirs

  1. To ensure that there is a solid and very difficult chain to break prior to your receiving/spending which in turn makes sure your funds stay with you or are sent properly.
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#4634

1, Both the blocks are valid and get propagated to the network so there’s a chain split

  1. It’s a block that was valid when minted but is no longer considered valid as it’s not on the longest branch of the chain

  2. They occurs when multiple miners solve a block close to each other and two version of the chain are propagated. After further blocks submissions on of the two branches will become the actual chain and the other will get discarded, with all the blocks in it becoming stales and transactions being re-added to the mempool.

  3. Cause a block may become stale. This is more likely to happen for recent blocks so waiting for multiple confirmation is reccomended.

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