3 ms·
> It used to work this way, but got changed to a less-than check for performance reasons. I don't know who told you that, but they were weirdly confused. It n
by nullc 6y ago
> It used to work this way, but got changed to a less-than check for performance reasons.
I don't know who told you that, but they were weirdly confused.
It not unlikely the case that sometime early in development (long before publication) that it was bits-based, not only is this how the standard hashcash code works-- but the Bitcoin code calls the relevant field that encods the difficulty "bits".
But Bitcoin itself never worked that way, not from the first instant. Changing it would have been a consensus incompatible change, and Bitcoin is still more or less consensus compatible all the way back. (There are outright bugs that make the old software get stuck, but if you fix those, it follows along).
- saurik 6y agoI did not read the sentence you are responding to as implying it was changed after final network launch, only that it was changed.
- nullc 6y agoWell there is no evidence of that other than "bits" and that's how hashcash worked. Sounds like an invitation on the meaning of the word "changed". No bitcoin software was ever released that worked another way.
- joosters 6y agoI don't know who told you that, but they were weirdly confused. The bitcoin whitepaper told them that, in more than one place too, so it's not a simple typo, e.g. ...we implement the proof-of-work by incrementing a nonce in the block until a value is found that gives the block's hash the required zero bits.