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The article references "orphans" in blockchain, what becomes of those orphans? My understanding is that nodes compete to solve the hash - then the "winning" nod

The article references "orphans" in blockchain, what becomes of those orphans? My understanding is that nodes compete to solve the hash - then the "winning" node has its transactions from the preceding 10 minutes added to the blockchain. What about all the other (thousands?) of nodes that didn't win - their transactions must not vanish into the ether, but what becomes of them? They must get added to the blockchain at some point otherwise something like bitcoin would collapse on itself, but i've never been able to wrap my head around how that happens.

deleted 9y ago
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oillio 9y ago
All the nodes have all the transactions (roughly). When you say the winning node puts "its" transactions in the block, that is really the transactions that it is currently aware of, and that fit in the block. All the losing nodes have the same transactions as well. When orphan blocks are identified and dropped, any unique transactions in those blocks are added to the pool of transactions that have the opportunity to be added to the next block
- icebraining 9y ago
  Well, most of the transactions will be the same, but they can have some transactions the other doesn't, depending on what transactions they received and then chose from their own mempool. It's just that those transactions who got inserted into the "losing" block - but not in the "winning" one - will be kept around to be added in a new block in the future.
rocqua 9y ago
Those orphans are treated like someone trying to 'fork' the blockchain by working on an older block, and trying to get a longer chain. Well behaved Miners will always mine on the longest chain, and get to pick if there are two chains of equal length. Most probably pick the first they saw, because it gives them more time to work on that block. So if an orphan comes along, people ignore it. Like other have said, all nodes know about almost all transactions, so the next miner will just see those transactions as still being 'up for grabs' and might include them in the next block they are attempting.
pdpi 9y ago
There's three fundamental network protocols at play with bitcoin: Node discovery, transaction broadcasting, and consensus. Node discovery and transaction broadcasting are "easy" gossip protocol problems. It's the consensus that's novel, and that's where blocks, proof-of-work, etc come into play. The gossip protocol for transaction broadcasting ensures that the whole network will see (almost) all transactions before they're published in a block.
gitgud 9y ago
I'm pretty sure that's what [1] this webpage references. Transactions that are waiting to be processed by the blockchain. [1] https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

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oillio 9y ago

All the nodes have all the transactions (roughly). When you say the winning node puts "its" transactions in the block, that is really the transactions that it is currently aware of, and that fit in the block. All the losing nodes have the same transactions as well. When orphan blocks are identified and dropped, any unique transactions in those blocks are added to the pool of transactions that have the opportunity to be added to the next block

icebraining 9y ago
Well, most of the transactions will be the same, but they can have some transactions the other doesn't, depending on what transactions they received and then chose from their own mempool. It's just that those transactions who got inserted into the "losing" block - but not in the "winning" one - will be kept around to be added in a new block in the future.

rocqua 9y ago

Those orphans are treated like someone trying to 'fork' the blockchain by working on an older block, and trying to get a longer chain. Well behaved Miners will always mine on the longest chain, and get to pick if there are two chains of equal length. Most probably pick the first they saw, because it gives them more time to work on that block. So if an orphan comes along, people ignore it. Like other have said, all nodes know about almost all transactions, so the next miner will just see those transactions as still being 'up for grabs' and might include them in the next block they are attempting.

pdpi 9y ago

There's three fundamental network protocols at play with bitcoin: Node discovery, transaction broadcasting, and consensus. Node discovery and transaction broadcasting are "easy" gossip protocol problems. It's the consensus that's novel, and that's where blocks, proof-of-work, etc come into play. The gossip protocol for transaction broadcasting ensures that the whole network will see (almost) all transactions before they're published in a block.

gitgud 9y ago

I'm pretty sure that's what [1] this webpage references. Transactions that are waiting to be processed by the blockchain. [1] https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions