Quote from: DannyHamilton on January 18, 2015, 12:47:51 AM

Quote from: doge94 on January 17, 2015, 11:05:35 PM

Quote from: Gavin Andresen on January 17, 2015, 09:59:06 PM

Why would a miner want only half the network to build on their block?

That makes no sense... what is the +2hr timestamp miner trying to accomplish?

It would create a temporary fork and perhaps some confusion. Maybe even break some badly coded bitcoin applications if they do not handle forks well.

Temporary forks happen every day (they are often called "orphan" blocks). Every time two miners (or pools) solve a block at close to the same time, some of the network hears about one block first, while some of the network hears about the other block first. Bitcoin is designed to work this way, and to adapt properly to the longest fork once another block is found.

Any "badly coded bitcoin applications" are already broken if they don't handle this daily occurrence properly.

Orphan blocks are a different case than an 2hr shift. When dealing with bitcoin edge cases are very common and sometimes not very well handled. What if half of the miners rejected the block and half accepted the block due to different local times? Then you would have different parts of the network contributing to different forks which is not as cut and dried as an orphan block. It would not be impossible, though highly unlikely.