This following shows our current and planned expectations concerning the maximum depth of reorganization of the probable chain. We would not consider transactions in this depth to have an exceptionally high chance of being permanent. These are our own expectations and constitute no kind of guarantee. They are derived from theoretical considerations, ongoing empirical data, human factors in the planning of the contingency and past experience of our security team. As with all things in peer space, the risk is entirely with the individual operator.
In the same way as many in space, we will monitor the chain for all signs of problems in the protocol. If we have a reason to suspect that there is a problem of level of protocol We will update these expectations therefore; Updates will be published in the forums and on the official blog. All those who are interested in our expectations and recommendations would do well to keep up to date with the blog.
Roadmap
Until 2015/08/08 18:00:00 This is: 6000
From 2015/08/08 18:00:00 CEST, 3000 (about 12 hours)
(1 day)
From 2015/08/09 18:00:00 CEST, 1500 (about 6 hours)
(3 days)
From 2015/08/12 18:00:00 CEST, 750 (about 3 hours)
(3 days)
From 2015/08/15 18:00:00 CEST, 375 (about 90 minutes)
(Rest of the border)
Addendum 2015/08/08: you can be slightly perplexed at the meaning of the “depth of chain reorganization”. The chain reorganizations occur when a node on the Ethereum network (which could belong to you, me, an exchange, a minor, anyone who) realizes that what he thought The canonical chain had proven not to be. When this happens, transactions in the last part of his chain (that is to say the most recent transactions) have remained and rather recent replacement transactions are executed.
Ethereum having a short -length target time of 15S, this naturally happens quite often. Because it takes time to the blocks to percolate in the network, it is easy for different parts of the network to have a different final block (or two, or perhaps even three) in normal operation, because minors often offer them almost at the same time. This is what we could call Ephemeral forkage. Indeed, many ancients (nests) that you see Ethereum network instructor were once supposed by certain nodes like the last block of the canonical chain.
When a reorganization occurs or put another way, when the network reaches a more global consensus it had earlier and a fork is resolved, the nodes which had the chain now exceeded “reorganize” their chain, throwing the recent and longer canonical blocks. The transactions remained and others executed to comply with the other path of the fork.
Transactions can be mutually exclusive, such as checks; If I have 100, the order is very important because they cannot both be paid. This means that a reorganization could lead to the reversion of a transaction and the execution of another mutually exclusive transaction. As such, if you are going to perform an irreversible action on the back of a transaction in the chain, it is very important to know the risks concerning reorganization.
Basically, the chances of a reorganization that occurs considerably reduces the end of the end you get. That is to say that the possibility of a reorganization which modifies the last three blocks is much less than the chance of the one who modifies the final block alone. Indeed, the consensus algorithm constantly strives to find itself in a common agreement on what the chain is. As long as there is no consensus (and therefore potential for a reorganization), it is not in a stable state and will sooner or later make it overthrow it. We call the number of blocks affected by the reorganization depth reorganization.
In general, reorganizations occur automatically and safely, however, however, anyone who makes real decisions according to the chain transactions must be aware of the reorganizations that occur and, above all, must make a decision to judge the depth of a transaction in the apparent chain before deciding that it is final The chain and not just a temporary fork that will ultimately be returned and resolved. The decision of the depth to wait is, in terms of Bitcoin, called the Number of confirmations.
Our expectations (somewhat important) of a possible reorganization depth (which can very well inform confirmation numbers) comes from the fact that the protocol is immature, that human factors are involved in any corrective action and that substantial quantities could be at stake. Basically, it is the border. There are scenarios, in particular those involving adversaries (“51%” attackers) that we have designed in which we think that fairly large figures are indeed justified at this initial stage.
In the end, of course, we cannot advise and inform: the risk on the number of “confirmations” to wait (or not) like that of all operational decisions, resides. Welcome to freedom 🙂
