{"id":13416,"date":"2023-09-28T06:24:37","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T06:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptoheretostay.com\/?p=13416"},"modified":"2023-09-28T06:24:38","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T06:24:38","slug":"bitcoin-miner-marathon-mines-invalid-block-in-failed-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/?p=13416","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin miner Marathon mines invalid block in failed \u2018experiment\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\namzn_assoc_placement = \"adunit0\";\r\namzn_assoc_tracking_id = \"totafreearti-20\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_mode = \"search\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_type = \"smart\";\r\namzn_assoc_marketplace = \"amazon\";\r\namzn_assoc_region = \"US\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = \"crypto\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_category = \"All\";\r\namzn_assoc_search_bar = \"false\";\r\namzn_assoc_title = \"\";\r\namzn_assoc_rows =\"1\";\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"\/\/z-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/onejs?MarketPlace=US\"><\/script>\n<p>Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital has confirmed it mined an invalid\u00a0 Bitcoin (BTC) block during an \u201cexperiment\u201d aimed at optimizing the firm\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n<p>In a Sept. 27 post, Marathon said\u00a0it utilizes a small percentage of the firm\u2019s hashrate toward these experiments and stressed they weren\u2019t trying to alter the network in any way:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn no way was this experiment an attempt to alter Bitcoin Core in any way.\u201d Marathon said, emphasizing that they corrected the error as soon as they noticed the invalid block.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We can confirm that Marathon did mine an invalid block. We utilize a small portion of our hash rate to experiment with our development pool and research potential methods to optimize our operations. The error was the result of an unanticipated bug that came from one of our\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) (@MarathonDH) September 27, 2023<\/p>\n<p>Marathon said the bug, which emanated from the firm\u2019s internal development environment, wasn\u2019t related to Marathon\u2019s Bitcoin production pool or Bitcoin Core \u2014 the leading software used to connect to the Bitcoin network and run a node.<\/p>\n<p>The incident occurred on Sept. 26 at 9:42 pm UTC on block 809478, according to mempool.space.<\/p>\n<p>Several Bitcoin developers, along with BitMEX Research attributed the invalid block to a \u201ctransaction ordering issue.\u201d Bitcoin developer \u201cmononaut\u201d believes Marathon mistake came from resorting the transactions in order of ascending absolute fees.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This is what MARA&#8217;s invalid block at 809478 looks like:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; pink transactions no longer exist in the main chain<br \/>&#8211; blue transactions are invalid due to ordering (they spend an output from a transaction included later in the block) https:\/\/t.co\/SJI1azOB5Z pic.twitter.com\/5gY9TRA2eG<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 mononaut (@mononautical) September 27, 2023<\/p>\n<p>Bitcoin analyst Dylan LeClair suggested that Marathon should have conducted this experiment on a testnet before attempting it on Bitcoin\u2019s mainnet.<\/p>\n<p>In reflection, Marathon said Bitcoin \u201cfunctioned exactly as designed\u201d by excluding the invalid block:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis incident, while unintended, underscores the robust security of the Bitcoin network, which rejected and rectified the anomaly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Related: <\/em><\/strong><strong><em>Marathon Digital Q2 results miss revenue and earnings forecasts<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Cointelegraph reached out to Marathon for comment but did not receive an immediate response.<\/p>\n<p>Marathon\u2019s (MARA) share price fell 2.91% to $8.01 during opening hours on Sept. 27, according to Google Finance.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Magazine: <\/em><\/strong><strong><em>\u2018Elegant and ass-backward\u2019: Jameson Lopp\u2019s first impression of Bitcoin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\namzn_assoc_placement = \"adunit0\";\r\namzn_assoc_tracking_id = \"totafreearti-20\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_mode = \"search\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_type = \"smart\";\r\namzn_assoc_marketplace = \"amazon\";\r\namzn_assoc_region = \"US\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = \"bitcoin\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_category = \"All\";\r\namzn_assoc_search_bar = \"false\";\r\namzn_assoc_title = \"\";\r\namzn_assoc_rows =\"1\";\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"\/\/z-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/onejs?MarketPlace=US\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/bitcoin-mining-firm-marathon-mines-invalid-block-btc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital has confirmed it mined an invalid\u00a0 Bitcoin (BTC) block during an \u201cexperiment\u201d aimed at optimizing the firm\u2019s operations. In a Sept. 27 post, Marathon said\u00a0it utilizes a small percentage of the firm\u2019s hashrate toward these experiments and stressed they weren\u2019t trying to alter the network in any way: \u201cIn no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bitcoin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13418,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416\/revisions\/13418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}