eCash(XEC) Regular Heartbeat Upgrade

The "Regular Heartbeat" upgrade will go live on the eCash Network on Nov. 15, 2024! Get ready for consistent 10-minute block times.

eCash's Heartbeat upgrade will fix a long-standing problem Bitcoin minority forks have

What's the problem?

The volatility of the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA)

And what is it about?

So-called "switch miners" jump over from other Bitcoin networks and join XEC with a significant hash rate much stronger than the current mining difficulty. High hash rate and low difficulty lead to lots of blocks mined in a very short time. They are here for one thing only. To mine a lot of blocks earning the block rewards in a very short time frame.

What's the issue with that?

When blocks get produced in much shorter time frames than the regular 10-minute approximation, the DAA switches gears and makes it harder for blocks to come in, adjusting for the increased hash rate. This again makes switch miners leave the network, leaving a high mining difficulty with the regular low hash rate that is left from "loyal miners" who don't switch around. With this higher difficulty, it takes a much longer time than 10 minutes, to mine a block.

How does Heartbeat Fix it?

The Heartbeat upgrade uses eCash's Avalanche integration to simply reject every block that is mined way too fast, in seconds, rather than 10-minute time frames. By removing the short-lived benefits for switch miners to exploit, switch mining is disincentivized, which reversely also helps "loyal miners". Without switch miners coming in with excessive hash, the DAA never needs to adjust up, or down again for that matter. Meaning, that blocks come in neither too fast (within seconds), nor too slow (taking hours) but in the expected regular 10 minutes give or take.

Impact of this Fix: 1. No more benefits for switch miners 2. Loyal miners aren't disincentivized anymore 3. Blocks come in reliably about every 10 minutes No more distortions in the network, just a regular, healthy pulse! Bonus: Fixing yet another problem that has been discussed and fought over during BCH days, which is still an issue to this day. Imagine this volatility issue, but you also have to wait for 10 or more confirmations instead of just one. Heartbeat will increase the quality of life from $XEC 1-conf security even more until pre-consensus removes the waiting for block confirmations altogether for the user.

Stay tuned to CoinCarp Social Media and Discuss with Us:

X (Twitter) | Telegram  | Reddit

Download CoinCarp App Now: https://www.coincarp.com/app/