Assume some very “sturdy” miner that may produce a brand new block (discover a appropriate nonce) on common each 3 minutes. Every little thing is ok so long as he units the appropriate timestamp (the one corresponding to three minutes on common), as a result of that approach the issue will enhance (the goal will lower) and the common time to discover a new block will return again to about 10 minutes.

Nonetheless, what occurs if he lies and units the timestamp values as 10 minutes even thought they’re truly 3?

In that case the block timestamps correspond to 10 minutes, however the blocks have been truly created each 3 minutes and propagated to the community. By that, the issue stays the identical (for the reason that timestamp within the blocks is about for 10 and never 3 minutes), which allows the malicious miner to additional have a monopoly over the community. Additionally, it moreover means that we’ll truly attain 2016 blocks (when retargeting is completed) in 14/3 (say ~5) days as an alternative of 14 days.

So one miner controls all the community as a result of he produces a block each 3 minutes whereas the issue stays as if it have been 10.

How does the community shield itself from this type of assault?