BIP 0022
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/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:
- 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.