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From: Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com>
To: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:12:48 +0000
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Message-Id: <201112221012.55565.andyparkins@gmail.com>
Cc: Michael
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Protocol extensions
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On 2011 December 21 Wednesday, Christian Decker wrote:

> Supernodes will be those nodes that verify all transactions and make them
> available to miners. Since miners will become more and more specialized
> these supernodes are likely to be owned by the miners themself. To be a
> miner either you need to verify all the transactions you include (otherwi=
se
> others might be able to find an error in your block and thus drop it) or
> have someone that verifies them for you. In the end I think we'll end up
> with a hierarchical network, with the miners/supernodes tighly
> interconnected at the top and the lightweight clients that simply verify
> transactions (or their inputs to be precise) that are destined for them at
> the bottom.

A thought occurred to me.  We already run a decentralised system, but it's=
=20
done by making everyone duplicate all other work.  There is no fundamental=
=20
reason why all work needs to be duplicated though.  What about this: every=
=20
node randomly chooses whether to verify any particular transaction.  If we=
=20
assume the network is large and the random factor is correctly chosen, then=
 we=20
can still guarantee that every transaction is verified.  Then, we simply ad=
d a=20
protocol message that is a negative-announce transaction.  That is to say, =
we=20
give nodes a way of telling other nodes that they think a transaction is=20
invalid.  The other nodes are then free to verify _that_ assertion and forw=
ard=20
the negative-announce.

Miners can then listen for negative-announcements and use them to decide we=
re=20
to dedicate their verification efforts.  They then don't need to verify all=
=20
(or perhaps even any) transactions themselves and can dedicate their=20
processing power to mining.

(I've actually mentioned this idea before, but that time I was using it as =
a=20
double-spend prevention method).


Andy

=2D-=20
Dr Andy Parkins
andyparkins@gmail.com

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