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Not only were some mining pools SPV mining, but they were advertising compliance with BIP66 at the same time; if they had not been advertising compliance, then

Not only were some mining pools SPV mining, but they were advertising compliance with BIP66 at the same time; if they had not been advertising compliance, then it is unlikely we'd have switched over to enforcing BIP66. So, don't lie about your SPV status in your coinbase is one of the lessons here for a pool operator. When I ran a (small but noticeable) pool, the bitcoin core team would occasionally reach out with warnings when an impending network change was coming that we didn't look compliant with; often we'd get two or three e-mails independently with plenty of warning. So, I would say this is chinese mining pools not playing by the rules, either because they didn't care to listen, or didn't care to have engineers do anything about it, and now they are eating it a bit, (and of course we all have some minor knock-on effects for a little while).

Adlai 11y ago
For the sake of quoting Greg Maxwell, I'd like to pick a nit. Bitcoin has no rules other than those you enforce yourself, and all these pools did was enforce fewer rules of their fellow players, than we assume they do.[4] Optimize would be less judgmental than cheat and speaks more precisely to the motivations[1]... we do need to be careful about this and make sure we're managing the incentives. Cheating is a moral judgement[2] Bonus quote, unearthed while digging up the above: While the identifiable parties in question here were Chinese; the first miners I saw doing this in the pastwere not Chinese-- it's not a Chinese specific issue; its a response to orphan rate. (China just has lots of hash power and poor connectivity).[3] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3c305f/if_you_are_using_any_wallet_other_than_bitcoin/csrsyfq?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3c305f/if_you_are_... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/3c2jci/daily_discussion_saturday_july_04_2015/csrtuou?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/3c2jci/dail... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3c305f/if_you_are_using_any_wallet_other_than_bitcoin/csrtejw?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3c305f/if_you_are_... [4] One could interpret the block version increment as a policy advertisement, but you know what they say about assumptions.
- vessenes 11y ago
  It's all good to quote Gmax, but I didn't say anyone was cheating, so I feel a bit straw-manned here. And incrementing your version number is precisely a policy advertisement, full stop. It is saying you are in compliance with v1/2/3 of the spec. If you want to lie about that to other miners, there may well be consequences.
  - Adlai 11y ago
    There are coinbase flags for neither SPV status, nor honesty.
- tete 11y ago
  They didn't cheat though, which in the end however means that they hurt (mostly) themselves (and their clients) and not others. So I think it doesn't really apply here.

Adlai 11y ago

For the sake of quoting Greg Maxwell, I'd like to pick a nit. Bitcoin has no rules other than those you enforce yourself, and all these pools did was enforce fewer rules of their fellow players, than we assume they do.[4] Optimize would be less judgmental than cheat and speaks more precisely to the motivations[1]... we do need to be careful about this and make sure we're managing the incentives. Cheating is a moral judgement[2] Bonus quote, unearthed while digging up the above: While the identifiable parties in question here were Chinese; the first miners I saw doing this in the pastwere not Chinese-- it's not a Chinese specific issue; its a response to orphan rate. (China just has lots of hash power and poor connectivity).[3] [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3c305f/if_you_are_using_any_wallet_other_than_bitcoin/csrsyfq?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3c305f/if_you_are_... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/3c2jci/daily_discussion_saturday_july_04_2015/csrtuou?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/3c2jci/dail... [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3c305f/if_you_are_using_any_wallet_other_than_bitcoin/csrtejw?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3c305f/if_you_are_... [4] One could interpret the block version increment as a policy advertisement, but you know what they say about assumptions.

vessenes 11y ago
It's all good to quote Gmax, but I didn't say anyone was cheating, so I feel a bit straw-manned here. And incrementing your version number is precisely a policy advertisement, full stop. It is saying you are in compliance with v1/2/3 of the spec. If you want to lie about that to other miners, there may well be consequences.
- Adlai 11y ago
  There are coinbase flags for neither SPV status, nor honesty.
tete 11y ago
They didn't cheat though, which in the end however means that they hurt (mostly) themselves (and their clients) and not others. So I think it doesn't really apply here.