“ is stale.” Early champions such as Jon McAffee have been describing the original cryptocurrency as the "true Shitcoin," while to make matters worse, it also recently witnessed the creation of another 'stale' block.
But why is a stale block a problem? Well, for those who don't know, a block is 'stale' when it's accepted onto the Bitcoin blockchain, but then cast off soon after, because the nodes that had added it to their versions of the chain ended up forking away to a longer, majority chain that doesn't include it.
For some, the fact that a 'stale' block can be cast off proves that Bitcoin isn't actually immutable. And given that the recent stale block detected by resulted in a double spend worth USD 3, critics also claim it proves that Bitcoin isn't a viable digital monetary system.
However, Bitcoin developers argue that Bitcoin is immutable, insofar as 'immutability' was ever really achievable in the first place. They also point out that double spends are practically impossible on Bitcoin, since most exchanges and payment processors tend to wait for multiple confirmations on the blockchain before confirming a transaction request.
Stale block
On January 27, BitMex Research tweeted that it had detected a stale block on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitcoin had a stale block today, at height 614,732.
* Size: 0.97 MB, Time: 05:37:37UTC, Miner: https://t.co/yVUGGpvX6f
* Stale block - Size: 0.98 MB, Time: 05:37:56UTC, Miner Poolinhttps://t.co/uzJXPMgOmm
This is the first stale block we have found since 16 Oct 2019 pic.twitter.com/zmSg9gsL5T
— BITMEX Research (@BitMEXResearch) January 27, 2020
As developer Eric Wall explains, this means that two nodes on the chain (perhaps located at opposite corners of the globe) solved the computation for the next valid block at the same time.
"Every Bitcoin node has its own local copy of the blockchain. So does every miner," he tells Cryptonews.com. "When two blocks are found by two different miners at the same time, they're sent across the planet. For a brief moment, ten minutes or so, there can be disagreement in the network about which block was actually found first."
