Questions tagged [timestamp]
Collects questions about the rules, precision, and utility of the timestamp in block headers.
116
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How many blocks per second can sustainably be created using a time warp attack?
In a time warp attack, an attacker can reduce proof of work difficulty to its minimum, which allows even a single piece of modern mining equipment to create large numbers of blocks per second. ...
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Can a block more than a week old be considered a valid chain tip?
I recently encountered an assertion about this and I have been trying to get to the bottom of it. It's well-known that Bitcoin blocks have timestamps and that there are certain requirements they need ...
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151
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What does the block time represent?
I've always been under the impression that a block's timestamp represents the second at which a block was found.
For this to be true, it would seem that the time header field must be modified along ...
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1
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What is the difference between the Time and Mtime fields?
Could anybody please tell me the difference between these two fields?
time
mtime
Thanks in advance!
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1
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102
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What determines the block's timestamp?
As a miner, what happens if I propogate a block with a future timestamp, or yesterday's timestamp? What determines the block time? Can I just give any time here or is it okay to change it with 1-2 ...
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Why isn't the upper bound (+2h) on the block timestamp set as a consensus rule?
Why isn't the +2h acceptance rule part of the consensus? Of course, then it couldn't be based on network-adjusted time + 2h because, in edge cases, one part of the network might accept something while ...
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1
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How exactly is the timestamp calculated for the +2h acceptance rule and do I have to implement it in my Bitcoin node for the node to still be valid?
In recent times, I have read many articles and questions/answers on bitcoin.stackexchange related to the timestamp, but I still have problems understanding certain things. They are related to the ...
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108
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Using Bitcoin as a trusted clock?
I'm looking for a way that a computer could get a rough estimate of the current date and time with a very high confidence level, for example in order to verify the expiry of a contract by means of a ...
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How to determine broadcast timestamp and confirmation timestamp for a given transaction id?
Given a transaction ID, how can I get:
The timestamp that the transaction was first broadcast
The timestamp that the transaction was first confirmed
In this case, I sent the transaction -- so I have ...
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2
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159
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Miners setting timestamps up to 2h into the Future
When a miner adds the Timestamp to a block template, it must satisfy two conditions:
Timestamp must be greater than the Median Timestamp of the previous 11 blocks
Timestamp must be less than its ...
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3
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Would a series of reorgs cause Bitcoin to break because of the 2-hour block time difference restriction?
Imagine there are a series of reorgs happening because of maybe some fee sniping event or something else, doesn't matter.
If that happens for over than 2 hours, then new blocks will not be able to ...
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Is it possible to check latency of already approved transactions?
I am running a BTC core node and I would like to perform some experiments and analysis on Bitcoin transaction latency. However, I see that the method getrwatransaction returns an object with:
"...
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Can a signed raw transaction's locktime be changed?
If I create a signed raw transaction with a locktime in the future, and give this raw transaction to somebody else, can they edit the locktime so that they recieve the bitcoin immediately?
For example,...
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Unable to use UNIX timestamp for locktime on testnet
I am trying to create a timelock transaction, but I am unable to use a UNIX timestamp on testnet. However, if I use a block height the transaction works.
When I use a block height that is in the ...
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150
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Can Bitcoin work without Network Time Protocol?
After reading an article about the imminent retirement of David Mills, and the possibility that there could be some handover issues (imho just rumors), I wondered if the Bitcoin protocol depends by ...
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Hash publication - Bitcoin whitepaper Section 3 Timestamp server
In section 3.Timestamp Server of the Bitcoin whitepaper it says:
The solution we propose begins with a timestamp server. A timestamp
server works by taking a hash of a block of items to be ...
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2
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Question about Bitcoin's Median Time Past
I was currently reading the book Mastering Bitcoin written by Andreas and was pretty confused about the concept called Median Time Past. Hopefully I can get some of your advice.
From my understanding, ...
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Softening the 2106 hard fork
Following along the 2106 problem solution proposed in Will a hard fork be required to change timestamp fields? …
Is it possible to start including this logic into newer versions of core (is it already ...
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105
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Which time does timestamp given in the block explorer represents?
The time block header was constructed
The time when block was validated?
if 2, this means not only nonce is incremented +1 every time we have hashed block header but also timestamp increments and ...
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Is timestamping needed for anything except difficulty adjustment
This question asks about the role of timestamping and this answer supports the assertion that the main role is block difficulty adjustment.
On the other hand, the whitepaper claims that ordering ...
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1
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Is the Bitcoin Blockchain aware of time?
I recently learned about how the lightning network works, and one particular thing that I found interesting is that, to prevent fraud, the output for each commitment transaction contains a clause for ...
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3
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if the lower bound of a blocks timestamps is the median of the previous blocks, how can the network difficulty ever decrease?
according to bitcoin developer documentation the lower bound for a blocks timestamp is the median of the previous 11 blocks.
and also according to the documentation the network difficulty is ...
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UNIX END TIME January 19, 2038 - Will it affect Timelock nLOCKTIME smart contracts past that date?
So UNIX END TIME is January 19, 2038.
What will happen then to the btc TX that looks at Unixtime for nLOCKTIME transactions?
Will any Locktime transaction past that date, say to 2040 be an issue? Or ...
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392
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How bitcoin miners choose timestamp in block header when mining?
I did a statistic about the difference between the first announcement time in the network and the timestamp in block header for blocks within 2020. Surprisingly, most (93%) differences are less than ...
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What is the correct way to calculate timestamp for a Block(125552)?
I am just learning mining process.
Today I learned that we have to find nonce for given block header.
And for block header we need timestamp in UTC
I took the timestamp data from below link of 125552 ...
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129
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Why is there no block time bias to <10min due to increasing hashrate?
Since the difficulty adjustment is based on a 2016 block window from the past, if we assume that the hashrate of the network is steadily increasing over time (up to temporary disturbances), why do ...
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2
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What would happen to Bitcoin if GPS/Galileo timing ceased to be available?
According to this web site, the timing from a system like GPS is essential to "financial networks [which] rely on precision timing for synchronization and operational efficiency." Is the ...
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2
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How strict are the Unix Epoch time validation rules?
According to bitcoin.org, full nodes have a strict requirement on the deviation of time within certain boundaries.
The block time is a Unix epoch time when the miner started hashing the header (...
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633
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Will a hard fork be required to change timestamp fields?
In the protocol there are multiple timestamp fields with varying lengths. For example a 4 byte unix timestamp would overflow in the year 2106. Will a hard fork be needed to deal with this issue in the ...
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Explanation of "Timestamp Server" section in original bitcoin paper
I'm trying to understand the "Timestamp Server" section in the original bitcoin paper. It feels overly short for someone without an understanding of cryptography.
Is it saying?
A block ...
2
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1
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335
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Can Taproot be used to commit arbitrary data to chain without any additional footprint?
A common way of committing some data to the chain is through an OP_RETURN with some hash. Doing this marks an output unspendable, but the output still requires some footprint (and cost) on the chain ...
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Input and Output of all funds in the same block?
Hope, someone can clarify this problem to me.
Please have a look at the btc address: 1CRTSXJXa3LsaHwjTA5yTbqbyi6QituztX
There have been 2 transactions so far. 1 input and 1 output.
BUT: According to ...
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Proof of Work vs. Proof of History
Can someone explain the context of what Nakamoto exactly meant with: "To implement a distributed timestamp server on a peer-to-peer basis, we will need to use a proof-
of-work system..."? I ...
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2
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Can we look at how long it took to solve for the most recent block in the blockchain? (and how?)
For example, can we see, the latest block, somebody got lucky and solved it in 1 minute, but then the next block, nobody solved it until 18 minutes later? (and how can we see it?)
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what if the timelock is in the past?
I just started learning about bitcoin scripting and wonder:
what if the timelock in CLTV is in the past?
what if the timelock in nLocktime is equal to 500.000?
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Is a timestamp in bitcoin different than just the "stamp of time"?
In the "References" section of Bitcoin's whitepaper, Satoshi Nakamoto points to three papers that serve as inspiration for digital timestamping.
When you read those documents it is clear ...
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HELP ME WITH BITCOIN TIME STAMPS
OK, so I had several backed up .dat files on google which I put in opentimestamps
I could see that these files had time stamp data... so I uploaded and *****below is what the results were.
What does ...
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3
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Is there a way to see the precise time of when a transaction was sent out?
I'm a developer. I'm not really knowledgeable in bitcoin development, yet.
Say, I'm using Electrum wallet. I share an address with someone. The thing is that I need this someone to pay a certain ...
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How to get the time when a block is received at a node?
Is there any variable in the bitcoind code that records the timestamp when a block is received for the first time by a particular node? To be more precise, for transactions, transaction information ...
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2
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Does Cryptocurrency really need timestamps?
Bitcoin is supposed to be a clock on it's own right so it always felt sketchy to me that outside time is referenced. Could bitcoin be aware of it's own block interval through something like uncle ...
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Block 620826 is 1 second before block 620825? [duplicate]
How does that happen? Obviously the miner of 826 built his block on top of 825, but why is the time 1 second earlier?
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423
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What does best block time mean in wallet.dat
I have a wallet.dat file that states:
Best block at time of backup was 42603 (0000000013136bd812212959a15ef0ea0f084ee2c64e2f7f0e127d198f67a37f),
mined on 2010-02-26T00:36:08Z
Does that mean that one ...
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how the miner start to count the timestamp to insert in the block
I have a doubt, how the miner starts to count the timestamp to insert in the block.
An example the timestamp insert inside the genesis block is 1/3/2009, 7:15:05 PM GMT+1. If the genesis block would ...
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Is it feasible to prove the density of found hashes and could that be valuable?
Background
When a miner claims a certain hash power and timestamps a block they solved, they are making a claim that a certain amount of time has passed since they received the previous block. ...
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TSA: Why singing hash(hash(data),t)?
Why does a TSA first appends the timestamp and hashes the combination of timestamp and data? This product is then signed and send to the client back with the timestamp. Why not signing hash + ...
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Retrieve number of OP-RETURN transaction
Is there a possible way to extract the bitcoin transaction protocoll with Python and extract specifically OP RETURN transaction?
I want to plot the number of those over the course of time to derive ...
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2
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How does this time-stamping system work?
There is an online tool called Proof of Existence which uses the bitcoin blockchain to time-stamp documents. I'm reading the documentation but I fail to see how it works. I understand that it adds ...
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How do nodes come to consensus on whether a timestamp is valid?
From bitcoin wiki:
A timestamp is accepted as valid if it is greater than the median timestamp of previous 11 blocks, and less than the network-adjusted time + 2 hours.
If a miner submits a block ...
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706
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Bitcoin Pro API - How do you format start/end time for Historic Data?
I don't understand how to format the start and end time per https://docs.pro.coinbase.com/#get-historic-rates
The sample time is "1415398768" which makes no intuitive sense to me, and when I tried ...
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January 19th, 2038: RIP Unix Timestamps
Is there a plan in place for when the inevitable 32-bit overflow of Unix timestamps occurs?
How much will this impact existing blocks that are timestamped with Unix Epoch times?