Friday, March 29, 2024

Orphaned Block

by Hideo Nakamura
Orphaned Block

Orphaned Block

An orphaned block, also known as a stale block, is a term used in the cryptocurrency world to describe a valid block that does not form part of the main blockchain. These blocks are typically created when two miners produce blocks at similar times and one chain becomes longer than the other. The shorter chain is then abandoned and any transactions contained within it become “orphaned” or “stale”.

The most common cause of an orphaned block is when there is latency between different nodes on the network; this means that some miners may not receive data in time to build their own new blocks before another miner receives it first. When this happens, both miners submit their newly-created blocks simultaneously and only one will be accepted by the rest of the network as valid (the longest chain). The other miner’s block will become an orphaned or stale block which must be disregarded by all participants in order for consensus to remain intact within the network.

In addition to latency issues causing orphans, more malicious actors can deliberately create them by withholding information about recently mined blocks from other peers on the network; this type of attack is known as a selfish mining attack and has been seen on multiple occasions with Bitcoin Core (BTC). As such, users should always take measures to ensure they are running up-to-date software with minimal latency on their node so that they can minimize risks related to these types of attacks.

When miners have successfully solved proof-of-work puzzles but do not end up being included in any chains due to competition from faster networks or malicious actors attempting selfish mining attacks, they are usually rewarded financially for their efforts regardless if they find themselves working on an orphaned/stale branch or not – however rewards received may vary depending upon certain circumstances like difficulty levels etc.. Furthermore, although unlikely under normal circumstances – if enough computational power was dedicated towards creating orphans/staleness then eventually coins could potentially be double spent without any recourse available since neither transaction would exist in any confirmed ledger state anymore!

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