I read the question "I don't understand the "51% attack" problem. Why does a mining pool have power with a 51% share?" and its anwers. That made me wonder that since the GBT protocol is generally not favored by pool operators (currently only one large pool, BTCC, offers it according to Comparison of Mining Pools), would that mean that those miners who mine through STM have given up their rights to choose what kind of block they'd like to mine? I understand that it needs both miners and users to agree with any protocol changes, but
- Not all users running full-node clients.
- It's possible and probable for large pool operators to gang together and act selfishly.
Since mining difficulty grows steadily solo mining becomes more and more unpractical. Mining pools will eventually take over almost all the hash power. Won't this result a centralized model of mining?
Is there any new protocol other than GBT and STM in the development?