BIP 0022

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This page describes a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal).
Please see BIP 2 for more information about BIPs and creating them. Please do not just create a wiki page.

  BIP: 22
  Title: getmemorypool
  Author: Luke Dashjr <luke+bip22@dashjr.org>
  Status: Draft
  Type: Standards Track
  Created: 28-02-2012

Abstract

This BIP describes a new JSON-RPC method for "smart" Bitcoin miners and proxies. Instead of sending a simple block header for hashing, the entire block structure is sent, and left to the miner to (optionally) customize and assemble.

Specification

JSON-RPC Method: getmemorypool

A new JSON-RPC method is defined, called "getmemorypool". It takes no arguments. If arguments are provided, it may wrap the "submitblock" JSON-RPC method (described later), cast to a Boolean return value (true = share accepted).

getmemorypool MUST return a JSON Object containing at least the following keys, all of which relate to the block header:

Key Required Type Description
bits Yes String the compressed difficulty in hexadecimal
curtime Yes Number the current time as seen by the server (recommended for block time)
height Should Number the height of the block we are looking for
previousblockhash Yes String the hash of the previous block, in big-endian converted to hexadecimal
transactions Should Array of Strings Bitcoin transactions encoded in hexadecimal (byte-for-byte), not including coinbase
version Yes Number always 1 (at least for bitcoin)
coinbasetxn or ↓ String hexadecimal byte-for-byte coinbase transaction
coinbasevalue or ↑ Number total funds available for the coinbase
coinbaseaux No Object data that SHOULD or MUST (depending on mutable flags) be included in the coinbase's scriptSig content. Only the values (hexadecimal byte-for-byte) in this Object should be included, not the keys.
expires No Number how many seconds (beginning from when the server sent the response) this work is valid for, at most
fulltarget No String the number which full results should be less than, in big-endian hexadecimal (see "share/*" mutations)
longpoll No String URI for long polling
maxtime No Number the maximum time allowed
maxtimeoff No Number the maximum time allowed (as a moving offset from "curtime" - every second, the actual maxtime is incremented by 1; for example, "maxtimeoff":0 means "time" may be incremented by 1 every second)
mintime No Number the minimum time allowed
mintimeoff No Number the minimum time allowed (as a moving offset from "curtime")
mutable No Array of Strings different manipulations that the server explicitly allows to be made (see Mutations)
noncerange No String two 32-bit integers, concatenated in big-endian hexadecimal, which represent the valid ranges of nonces the miner may scan
submitold No Boolean only relevant for long poll responses; indicates if work received prior to this response remains potentially valid (default) and should have its shares submitted; if false, the miner may wish to discard its share queue
target No String the number which valid results must be less than, in big-endian hexadecimal
txrequired No Number this many of the first transactions provided must be present in the final block, even if the "transactions/remove" mutation is allowed
workid No String or Number if provided, this value must be returned with results (see "submitblock")

Mutations

Any of these may be listed in the "mutable" key to signify modifications the miner is allowed to make:

Value Significance
coinbase/append append the provided coinbase scriptSig
coinbase provide their own coinbase; if one is provided, it may be replaced or modified (implied if "coinbasetxn" omitted)
generation add or remove outputs from the coinbase/generation transaction (implied if "coinbasetxn" omitted)
share/coinbase if the block hash is less than "target", but not less than "fulltarget", only return the block header and coinbase transaction, but only if the other transactions are unmodified from those proposed in the getmemorypool job
share/merkle if the block hash is less than "target", but not less than "fulltarget", only return the block header, coinbase transaction, and merkle tree connecting that transaction to the root (in the form of repeated right-side SHA256 hashes) in "submitblock"
share/truncate if the block hash is less than "target", but not less than "fulltarget", only return the block header in "submitblock"
time/increment change the time header to a value after "time" (implied if "maxtime" or "maxtimeoff" are provided)
time/decrement change the time header to a value before "time" (implied if "mintime" is provided)
time modify the time header of the block
transactions/add add other valid transactions to the block
transactions/remove remove transactions provided by the server
transactions add or remove transactions (both of the above; implied if "transactions" omitted from result)
prevblock use the work with other previous-blocks; this implicitly allows removing transactions that are no longer valid, unless they are part of the "txrequired" count; it also implies adjusting "height" as necessary

Note that miners are NOT required to implement any of these mutations.

Long Polling

If the server supports long polling, it SHOULD include the "longpoll" key with a relative or absolute URI. The absolute URI MAY specify a different port than the original connection. Miners MAY start a request to this long polling URI with a standard JSON-RPC request (POST with data) and same basic authorization. This request SHOULD NOT be processed nor answered by the server until it wishes to replace the current block data. Clients SHOULD make this request with a very long request timeout and MUST accept the server sending response headers with "chunked" Transfer-Encoding delaying the completion of the final JSON response.

Upon receiving a completed response:

  • Only if "submitold" is provided and false, the client MAY discard the results of past operations and MUST begin working on the new work immediately.
  • The client SHOULD begin working on the new work received as soon as possible, if not immediately.
  • The client SHOULD make a new request to the same long polling URI.

If a client receives an incomplete or invalid response, it SHOULD retry the request with an exponential backoff. Clients MAY implement this backoff with limitations (such as maximum backoff time) or any algorithm as deemed suitable. It is however forbidden to simply retry immediately with no delay after more than one failure. In the case of a "Forbidden" response (for example, HTTP 403), a client SHOULD NOT attempt to retry without user intervention.

JSON-RPC Method: submitblock

A new JSON-RPC method is defined, called "submitblock". It takes one to two arguments. The first argument is the block data; this may be truncated or merkle-ified depending on the "share/truncate" or "share/merkle" mutations, respectively. The second argument, if provided, is an Object. The only defined key of this Object is the "workid" provided by the server: if a "workid" was specified, it must be submitted with the share/block.

This method MUST return either null (when a share is accepted), a String describing briefly the reason the share was rejected, or an Object of these with a key for each merged-mining chain the share was submitted to.

Possible reasons a share may be rejected include, but are not limited to:

Reason Description
bad-cb-flag the server detected a feature-signifying flag that it does not allow
bad-cb-length the coinbase was too long (bitcoin limit is 100 bytes)
bad-cb-prefix the server only allows appending to the coinbase, but it was modified beyond that
bad-diffbits "bits" were changed
bad-prevblk the previous-block is not the one the server intends to build on
bad-txnmrklroot the block header's merkle root did not match the transaction merkle tree
bad-txns the server didn't like something about the transactions in the block
bad-version the version was wrong
duplicate the server already processed this block data
high-hash the block header did not hash to a value lower than the specified target
rejected a generic rejection without details
stale-prevblk the previous-block is no longer the one the server intends to build on
stale-work the work this block was based on is no longer accepted
time-invalid the time was not acceptable
time-too-new the time was too far in the future
time-too-old the time was too far in the past
unknown-user the user submitting the block was not recognized
unknown-work the template or workid could not be identified

Known Bugs

This BIP should not be promoted from Draft status until these are addressed:

  • Noncerange might not be possible to support for all workers, so a way to signal support is needed
  • Longpolling currently assumes URI-based requests, which is not implied by JSON-RPC.
  • (feel free to add issues here)

Motivation

There is reasonable concerns about mining currently being too centralized on pools, and the amount of control these pools hold. By exposing the details of the block proposals to the miners, they are enabled to audit and possibly modify the block before hashing it.

There is also a very minor load reduction on the pool server, since it does not need to calculate SHA256 for the block's merkle tree.

Reference Implementation