It just occurred to me that the block version number could easily be used as a cheap "extra nonce" right now. Considering that we will probably see lots of ASIC miners running at 1 TH/s per rig before the end of 2012, it might be desirable to save the block version for this purpose.
The current block height in coinbase addition currently proposes to use block version 2. However, the protocol change is in fact to the coinbase transaction, not the block itself (which really doesn't have any extensibility without a hardfork anyway). Perhaps we should consider bumping the coinbase transaction version number to 2 for this instead? Also, Jeff noticed that block 190192 has version==2 without a valid block height in the coinbase. I suspect this may be the result of combining the current blockheight-in-coinbase pullreq with P2Pool. This means that if we go forward with the version==2 marker, we will forever need to make an exception for that block. Moving the version==2 to the coinbase transaction version also means whoever makes that transaction (thus deciding whether to put the height in it or not) also sets the version number - instead of the block version coming from bitcoind and the coinbase transaction coming from P2Pool or other software. Thoughts? Luke ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
