BetterHash pushes the mining protocol to decentralize the pool

Original title:《BetterHash, an attempt to make Bitcoin mining more decentralized》

The Block

Translation: 0 x 33

A long-standing problem in the bitcoin ecosystem is the centralization of mining, especially the presence of pools that make centralization seem more prominent.

BetterHash is a new mining protocol that aims to make mining pools more decentralized. The idea was proposed by Bitcoin Core contributor Matt Carallo.

A mine pool is an entity where bitcoin miners hash power to coordinate mining activities. This process provides periodic block rewards and transaction fees to potential individual miners, who are rewarded by the pool based on the amount of computing power they provide to the block, not on who first discovers the block. Most of the pools are run by companies or individuals that run pool servers and collect a percentage of mining revenues from miners to run pool mining agreements, maintain full bitcoin nodes, and coordinate mining activities.

& have spent Existing mining pool protocol & NBSP;

To connect to the pool's servers, individual miners typically make use of the dominant mining protocol Stratum or getblocktemplate. Folio was initiated by SlushPool, the oldest bitcoin mine. However, some of the characteristics of these protocols contribute to their inefficiency (getblocktemplate) and centralization (Stratum). Both protocols are valid communication protocols that enable the pool and the miner to communicate with each other and with Bitcoin Core software. The simplicity and extensibility of getblocktemplate have made it popular with most pools, but the mining story of bitcoin has become more centralised in its own right.

The central problem with Stratum is that it redirects the ability to create blocks and select trades from individual miners to pool operators. Slushpool acknowledges this in its proposed deal, but it also claims that "99 per cent of the real miners don't care about the deal choice" and "they just want to get the highest possible block reward".

& have spent Centralized mining & & NBSP;

By joining the pool operated under the Stratum agreement, the ASIC miners gave up their ability to choose the deals included in the block. In Stratum, the pools create block templates and send them to their miners. The miner then USES these templates to dig the block, applies logic and rules as-is, and sends any results of his mining work back to the pool for block rewards and a share of the trade.

The potential consequences of this structure are:

Ore control :& & NBSP; & have spentBlock form control effectively allows the pools to determine where their miners are and what they dig. As a result, they can easily redirect the force to any chain they like, as Bitcoin.com did during the BCH fork last year.

Consensus attack :& NBSP;Because pool operators control the calculations of miners, pools are tempting targets for entities hoping to influence/attack the bitcoin network. Some examples include being bribed by an exchange to conduct a restructuring/rollback attack to recover hacked funds, or being pressured by regulators to attack a chain.

Signal operation:Pools can use their miners' hash rates to signal support or rejection of an offer or fork without direct financial costs. That could lead to a false conclusion about what the miners support, which could be harmful during a hard bifurcation of controversy.

 BetterHash Mining Protocol 

In 2018, Bitcoin Core contributor Matt Carallo proposed the BetterHash Mining Protocol, which aims to reduce problems in existing Mining protocols. BetterHash replaces getblocktemplate and Stratum and divides the Pool communication function into two protocols: Work and Pool. The work agreement handles the communication between the Bitcoin Core and the miners in the pool, while the pool agreement handles the communication between the miners' agent and the pool operator. By separating these communications functions, BetterHash allows miners in the pool to use transactions of their choice to form their own blocks, leaving the job of allocating the pool to the pool operator.

In addition, BetterHash improves the security of the connection between the pool and the miner by introducing cryptographic authentication.

According to the BetterHash bitcoin improvement, the current stratification protocol lacks an "encrypted authenticated connection between the server and client," which becomes "a vehicle for time attacks (such as MiTM) that allow the malicious party to silently control the forces before the pool operator and/or other miners intervene."

This attack vector was misused in 2014, when an attacker hijacked the BGP routing protocol, targeted miners in various cryptocurrency pools, and routed their computing power to the attacker's own mine, where the pool paid only for digging itself. BetterHash's protocol thus provides a cryptographic authentication scheme that allows miners and pools to verify that they are indeed communicating with each other.

In addition, BetterHash introduces an optional feature feature that USES "Weak Blocks" to improve block propagation. Weak Blocks is an old concept that proposes a way to improve block propagation, allowing miners to pre-declare the block they are working on for their peers to verify before solving a fully valid block. If the miner does find a valid block, and all previous Weak Blocks have been verified and monitored by other miners, the miner only needs to transmit less data to retransmit the block to the network, thus saving the time for the block to propagate.

& have spent Disadvantages of BetterHash & NBSP;

While BetterHash offers many attractive features for proponents of decentralization, it also has many disadvantages.

Lack of power for the pool: BetterHash requires the pool operator to reorganize the code to fully support the new protocol. However, the agreement does not provide direct benefits for the pool. In effect, BetterHash deprives pool operators of their power because they will no longer be able to redirect and control miners' calculations.

The incentive for miners is limited: BetterHash requires miners to run and maintain their own full bitcoin nodes to create blocks. This is resource-intensive because miners now need to spend time making sure their nodes are online and providing storage space to support the growing bitcoin blockchain. In return, miners can create their own blocks and contribute to the decentralisation of the network, which is more an ideological decision than a business one.

The power of the pool remains strong: according to Bitcoin Core developer Eric Voskuil, the pool operator under BetterHash still controls the process of payment and benefits, and unless miners excavate the block designated by the pool operator, the pool is likely to threaten the miners by withholding payments and benefits.

& have spent Conclusion & have spent

As the threat of pool centralisation continues, BetterHash has introduced a potential way to reduce the unifying power of the few dominant pool operators. But in the absence of an effective incentive for pool operators and miners to adopt BetterHash, the proposal seems to be just that,Whether it can go ahead depends on the cooperation of the miners and the mine pool.

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