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Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

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Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#71

Post by dmitriid »

waytogo wrote: post #63

OT: From my perspective, HN is the reference regarding tech content. The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussions are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech. Surprisingly this is not true with Blockchain topics. Upvoted Blockchain stories feel ok but not that relevant or often random. Comments, discussions are sometimes constuctive (like this one) but often ant…

> but often anti-blockchain

This is precisely because of: "The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussion are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech."

If the best, the brightest, the most educated are anti-blockchain, there are definitely reasons for them to be.

---

BTW. Is this true what the article is saying: it takes 10 minutes for a transaction to clear in bitcoin?

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#72

Post by thaumasiotes »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #69
rusbus wrote: post #29

TLDR: Since blocks that take a long time to mine fill up more wall-clock time, if you pick an arbitrary instant of wall clock time, you're more likely to be in a "slow" block than a fast block. Specifically, you expect to wait 2x the average.

Ha that's why I spend most of my driving time stuck in traffic. And why do 3 buses come at once? Because the first one takes all the passengers, so stops more and gets slowed down. The other 2 catch up. And also if you do half your trip and 10mph and the other at 20mph your average isn't 15mph. You spent more time at 10mph!

> if you do half your trip and 10mph and the other at 20mph your average isn't 15mph. You spent more time at 10mph!

If you're measuring "half your trip" in terms of distance covered, sure. If "half your trip" refers to half the total time, then your average is exactly 15 mph.

> And why do 3 buses come at once? Because the first one takes all the passengers, so stops more and gets slowed down. The other 2 catch up.

This is not related to the other phenomena you mention; as described here, the buses are actually being driven together as opposed to varying randomly.

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#73

Post by thaumasiotes »

travisjungroth wrote: post #12
alschwalm wrote: post #5

The article on the "hitchhiker's paradox" that this links to made this much more clear to me (as well as being shorter): https://the8layers.com/2016/10/30/how-long-will-you-wait-hit...

This reminds me of headwinds in airplanes. You might think that on average, wind cancels out. Sometimes you have a tailwind, sometimes you have a headwind and over time it will all average out. This is not the case. On average, wind reduces your groundspeed. The short of it is you spend more time in a headwind, so you spend more time experiencing the bad than good. There's also the fact that even a direct crosswind s…

> You might think that on average, wind cancels out. Sometimes you have a tailwind, sometimes you have a headwind and over time it will all average out. This is not the case.

Only if you didn't have to do the standard physics problem comparing swimming X meters upstream and back downstream to swimming X meters across and then back across.

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#74

Post by meuk »

I have been thinking about this as well, in another context. When I am at the tennis court, I always seem to be surrounded by players which are far above average.

This seems paradoxical, but you're more likely to meet the players which train most often, and they are also most likely to be the best tennis players.

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#75

Post by thaumasiotes »

lordnacho wrote: post #67
modeless wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That simple explanation is exactly wrong though! You don't expect to wait 2x the average. You expect to wait 1x the average, but you also expect that when you start waiting the previous block happened 1x the average time ago, and 1+1=2.

This is the best explanation of the phenomenon. Simple and actually explains why it's 2x and not 3x or 4x.

Is it actually true though? Compare these two comments buried downthread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16470358

> The hitchhiker's paradox is correct, taking a point and looking backward or forward will correctly give an average event 10 minutes away, but combining the events to give an average of 20 minutes is false.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16471544

> I thought this sounded funny, and I did a little simulation to see if it was correct. Given his assumptions (poisson with lambda 10), you do not get that answer. I got right around 10, which is what I would expect.

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#76

Post by waytogo »

sbierwagen wrote: post #65
waytogo wrote: post #63

OT: From my perspective, HN is the reference regarding tech content. The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussions are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech. Surprisingly this is not true with Blockchain topics. Upvoted Blockchain stories feel ok but not that relevant or often random. Comments, discussions are sometimes constuctive (like this one) but often ant…

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge... When it's in the topic of your domain expertise, you perceive HN to be incorrect, but in all other domains, to be right?

Maybe most of the tech fields covered by HN are also of my domain expertise.

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#77

Post by [deleted] »

mofeien wrote: post #49
rusbus wrote: post #29

TLDR: Since blocks that take a long time to mine fill up more wall-clock time, if you pick an arbitrary instant of wall clock time, you're more likely to be in a "slow" block than a fast block. Specifically, you expect to wait 2x the average.

you expect to wait 2x the average. Actually, this is also slightly incorrect, conflating "expected wait time until next block" with "average current block duration". These are two different expectancies: You always expect to wait exactly the average wait time of 10min until next block; and you expect your block to be of double average duration (20min, with the instant of sampling lying somewhere in the middle). The c…

[deleted]

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#78

Post by mnw21cam »

justonepost wrote: post #33
rusbus wrote: post #29

TLDR: Since blocks that take a long time to mine fill up more wall-clock time, if you pick an arbitrary instant of wall clock time, you're more likely to be in a "slow" block than a fast block. Specifically, you expect to wait 2x the average.

Thanks. Why can't all math teachers talk like that? I mean... I know you're clever and all, but if you were really clever you'd explain it in a way that's easy to understand. Still, kudos to the OP. That was a great attempt to be precise.

An expert is someone who can take something you already understand, and make it sound confusing.

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#79

Post by modeless »

dmitriid wrote: post #71
waytogo wrote: post #63

OT: From my perspective, HN is the reference regarding tech content. The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussions are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech. Surprisingly this is not true with Blockchain topics. Upvoted Blockchain stories feel ok but not that relevant or often random. Comments, discussions are sometimes constuctive (like this one) but often ant…

> but often anti-blockchain This is precisely because of: "The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussion are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech." If the best, the brightest, the most educated are anti-blockchain, there are definitely reasons for them to be. --- BTW. Is this true what the article is saying: it takes 10 minutes for a transaction to clear in bit…

Yes, it takes 10 minutes on average for a transaction to be included in a block. Potentially much longer if you are unlucky or didn't pay a high enough fee. On top of that most places won't accept just one block. The standard is 6 blocks, so 1 hour on average. That's the price you pay for a truly trustless distributed system. Still (much) faster than ACH or wire transfers or securities trade settlement.

Re: Why Is It Taking 20 Minutes to Mine This Bitcoin Block?

#80

Post by ttsda »

dmitriid wrote: post #71
waytogo wrote: post #63

OT: From my perspective, HN is the reference regarding tech content. The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussions are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech. Surprisingly this is not true with Blockchain topics. Upvoted Blockchain stories feel ok but not that relevant or often random. Comments, discussions are sometimes constuctive (like this one) but often ant…

> but often anti-blockchain This is precisely because of: "The upvoted stories, the comments, the discussion are of such a high quality. It's just the best resource to stay informed and educated in tech." If the best, the brightest, the most educated are anti-blockchain, there are definitely reasons for them to be. --- BTW. Is this true what the article is saying: it takes 10 minutes for a transaction to clear in bit…

10 minutes in near optimal conditions. Realistically it takes a lot longer and you pay a ton of fees.
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