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"Better yet, if you happen to know a miner (we didn’t), you could have them include the transaction directly in a block, skipping the mempool—and the monsters—e

"Better yet, if you happen to know a miner (we didn’t), you could have them include the transaction directly in a block, skipping the mempool—and the monsters—entirely." ugh. It's not what you know, it's who you know That said, this looks like a very interesting and rewarding system to hack. But it seems to serve little purpose. The other comments comparing it to Eve Online are spot on

solotronics 6y ago
The "purpose" is to be able to trade one coin for another without having a trusted intermediary such as an exchange or escrow.
cynusx 6y ago
sounds like a legitimate service a miner could offer for (real) money
- acjohnson55 6y ago
  I don't see how that would work. Wouldn't that miner have to win the race to find a block in order to help? Seems like this would greatly lengthen the amount of time for a transaction to commit. You'd have to tell your transaction to a bigger set of miners to increase your chances, but that would also increase the chance of your transaction leaking to a front-runner.
rsync 6y ago
I came here to ask about that specific quotation: "Better yet, if you happen to know a miner (we didn’t), you could have them include the transaction directly in a block, skipping the mempool—and the monsters—entirely." In the bitcoin ecosystem, as far as I know, basically everyone can be a miner, right ? If you are running the bitcoin client you are mining and there is no particular barrier to entry to mining ... just run the client and mine. How is the ethereum ecosystem different ? If they could avoid all of these complications by mining, why didn't they just fire up their miner ?
- shp0ngle 6y ago
  Its the same in bitcoin ecosystem, really. But bitcoin transactions are orders of magnitude less complex. So you don’t get these “frontrunners” at all.
- drdrey 6y ago
  If you just fire up the client and mine, it will do practically nothing. You will have essentially no compute power, so no chance to ever get the block with the transactions you want included
- darcys22 6y ago
  Its not just being the miner, its winning the block and including that transaction in the block without it first being included in the mempool and transmitted over the network.
- martinko 6y ago
  Its not different. The issue you run into in both systems is that unless you have a large amount of specialized hardware, you will not be able to mine a block in your lifetime. The number of blocks being mined is constant for the entire mining ecosystem, so you are basically competing with all the other miners to create a new block.
  - rsync 6y ago
    I see - so the protection one could gain from being a miner that the article alluded to would come not just from being a miner, but from successfully mining blocks. That distinction is needed since, no matter how slow and painfully inefficient I am, if I am running the miner I am, indeed, a miner on the network ...

solotronics 6y ago

The "purpose" is to be able to trade one coin for another without having a trusted intermediary such as an exchange or escrow.

cynusx 6y ago

sounds like a legitimate service a miner could offer for (real) money

acjohnson55 6y ago
I don't see how that would work. Wouldn't that miner have to win the race to find a block in order to help? Seems like this would greatly lengthen the amount of time for a transaction to commit. You'd have to tell your transaction to a bigger set of miners to increase your chances, but that would also increase the chance of your transaction leaking to a front-runner.

rsync 6y ago

I came here to ask about that specific quotation: "Better yet, if you happen to know a miner (we didn’t), you could have them include the transaction directly in a block, skipping the mempool—and the monsters—entirely." In the bitcoin ecosystem, as far as I know, basically everyone can be a miner, right ? If you are running the bitcoin client you are mining and there is no particular barrier to entry to mining ... just run the client and mine. How is the ethereum ecosystem different ? If they could avoid all of these complications by mining, why didn't they just fire up their miner ?

shp0ngle 6y ago
Its the same in bitcoin ecosystem, really. But bitcoin transactions are orders of magnitude less complex. So you don’t get these “frontrunners” at all.
drdrey 6y ago
If you just fire up the client and mine, it will do practically nothing. You will have essentially no compute power, so no chance to ever get the block with the transactions you want included
darcys22 6y ago
Its not just being the miner, its winning the block and including that transaction in the block without it first being included in the mempool and transmitted over the network.
martinko 6y ago
Its not different. The issue you run into in both systems is that unless you have a large amount of specialized hardware, you will not be able to mine a block in your lifetime. The number of blocks being mined is constant for the entire mining ecosystem, so you are basically competing with all the other miners to create a new block.
- rsync 6y ago
  I see - so the protection one could gain from being a miner that the article alluded to would come not just from being a miner, but from successfully mining blocks. That distinction is needed since, no matter how slow and painfully inefficient I am, if I am running the miner I am, indeed, a miner on the network ...