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How do nodes choose which fork — past the latest checkpoint — to view as the main chain? E.g. let’s say I take the main chain, go back to the first block past
by runeks 9y ago
How do nodes choose which fork — past the latest checkpoint — to view as the main chain?
E.g. let’s say I take the main chain, go back to the first block past the latest checkpoint, and remove the competing staking-transactions so that only my staking-transaction is present in that block. The I build on top of this, without competition, because I can selectively remove competing staking transactions simply by constructing new blocks that don’t contain them.
Let’s say hundreds, or thousands, of stakers do this. How do nodes decide which chain is the right one?
- DennisP 9y agoIf I understand this right, in Casper the right chain is the one in which the least stake is destroyed. In one version, stakers are heavily penalized for going offline, so the chain you describe would destroy a fair amount of stake. This is Vlad Zamfir's version; Vlad is the lead Casper esearcher, and takes a more long-term theoretical approach, while Vitalik is more focused on near-term practicality. Vitalik's version doesn't penalize dropping offline as heavily; I don't know whether there's some other mechanism to cover this, or he just thinks a lighter penalty is sufficient. Thanks for the question! Until now I didn't realize the reason for the offline penalty.