Persistent Mining Pool Conflict Alert - DEPRECATED

THIS ENDPOINT HAS BEEN DEPRECATED AND WILL NO LONGER BE ACTIVELY MAINTAINED, UPDATED OR SUPPORTED

Alert Definition

Alerts if miners disagree on which version of the blockchain to build upon over the course of three blocks.

Dictionary

Name	AlertID	Category	Sub-category	Type	Unit	Interval
Persistent Mining Pool Conflict Alert	persistent_mining_pool_conflict_3b_hi	Alert	Mining Alerts	Sum	Blocks	Ad hoc

Interpretation

The blockchain fundamentally serves as a coordination mechanism for its users. When miners put together a new block of transactions, they often choose the most recently-mined block to build upon. Once a miner is successful, all other miners are expected to stop their work and create yet another block template that builds upon that miner's block. While that is the expectation, there are conditions that may lead mining pools to disagree on which block to build upon. Such disagreements can lead to network disruptions such as blockchain reorganization events, or reorgs.

Potential Root Causes

A mining pool might not be seeing the same block(s) as others due to connectivity problems at the P2P layer.

The network might have experienced a stale block and/or reorgs.

A 51% attack might have been launched and mining pools are uncertain as to which branch of the blockchain to build upon.

Potential bugs with mining pool firmware and/or supporting software.

Asset Coverage

Bitcoin (BTC)