0

I am wondering if there is any easy way to get number of mined blocks per day + number of stale blocks per day for the last three month e.g.,? I could not find such data on Blockchain.info

In Ethereum, however, Etherscan provides these, see: https://etherscan.io/chart/blocks and https://etherscan.io/chart/uncles

Any help about getting such data for Bitcoin?

2 Answers 2

3

Stale blocks are not propagated well in Bitcoin-- the very fast compact block and fibre relay very aggressively blocks the propagation of stales. As a result the only way to get a good visibility of stales is to have a data from a fairly large number of highly geographically distributed nodes.

Geographic distribution is important because for the case of a block race with geographically separated blocks you will usually only hear the one from a geographically closer source. Connecting to a great number of nodes is not likely important, connecting to a decent number of geographically close nodes however is likely important.

As an aside, in ethereum only a finite number of 'uncles' are signaled so you are probably missing ones there too if the source are just depending on that.

In measurements on Bitcoin I've done recently I used data from 7 nodes spread around the world and still dropping any one of them would make me miss some blocks-- so I think it's likely that I was still missing some in those measurements.

1

To my knowledge, there is no high quality data source for this.

Blocks mined is fairly simple to check, as that is simply the main chain's progress.

Stale blocks is harder for Bitcoin and Bitcoin based currencies. Unlikely ethereum's uncles, references to stale blocks are not stored anywhere, and after a better chain exists, propagation will not take place, so many nodes do not see a stale block at all. The only way to collect data would be to run multiple nodes, connected to as many different peers are possible, and monitor the logs for chain tip reorganizations. As far as I'm aware, no one is currently doing this, and if they are it is not offered as a publicly available dataset.

2
  • Thanks! could i know how to run multiple listening nodes? and check the logs? any useful link to explain? Also, can i montior block & transaction propagation delays?
    – MWH
    Commented Oct 21, 2018 at 1:01
  • Multiple listening nodes just means running multiple nodes. Get a bunch of servers, run nodes on them. You will likely need some additional tooling to make sure they connect to different peers. Monitoring block and tx propagation will also require some additional scripts to check the logs/listen for incoming transactions. Commented Oct 21, 2018 at 1:24

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.