Bitcoin mining agency Marathon Digital has confirmed it mined an invalid Bitcoin (BTC) block throughout an “experiment” aimed toward optimizing the agency’s operations.
In a Sept. 27 put up, Marathon said it makes use of a small share of the agency’s hashrate towards these experiments and confused they weren’t making an attempt to change the community in any means:
“By no means was this experiment an try to change Bitcoin Core in any means.” Marathon mentioned, emphasizing that they corrected the error as quickly as they seen the invalid block.
We will affirm that Marathon did mine an invalid block. We make the most of a small portion of our hash fee to experiment with our growth pool and analysis potential strategies to optimize our operations. The error was the results of an unanticipated bug that got here from certainly one of our…
— Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) (@MarathonDH) September 27, 2023
Marathon mentioned the bug, which emanated from the agency’s inside growth atmosphere, wasn’t associated to Marathon’s Bitcoin manufacturing pool or Bitcoin Core — the main software program used to connect with the Bitcoin community and run a node.
The incident occurred on Sept. 26 at 9:42 pm UTC on block 809478, in response to mempool.house.
A number of Bitcoin builders, together with BitMEX Analysis attributed the invalid block to a “transaction ordering situation.” Bitcoin developer “mononaut” believes Marathon mistake got here from resorting the transactions so as of ascending absolute charges.
That is what MARA’s invalid block at 809478 seems like:
– pink transactions not exist in the principle chain
– blue transactions are invalid as a result of ordering (they spend an output from a transaction included later within the block) https://t.co/SJI1azOB5Z pic.twitter.com/5gY9TRA2eG— mononaut (@mononautical) September 27, 2023
Bitcoin analyst Dylan LeClair recommended that Marathon ought to have carried out this experiment on a testnet earlier than trying it on Bitcoin’s mainnet.
In reflection, Marathon mentioned Bitcoin “functioned precisely as designed” by excluding the invalid block:
“This incident, whereas unintended, underscores the strong safety of the Bitcoin community, which rejected and rectified the anomaly.”
Associated: Marathon Digital Q2 outcomes miss income and earnings forecasts
Cointelegraph reached out to Marathon for remark however didn’t obtain an instantaneous response.
Marathon’s (MARA) share worth fell 2.91% to $8.01 throughout opening hours on Sept. 27, in response to Google Finance.
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