V3/TRUC miner adoption

The experiment was initiated alongside an upgrade to Bitcoin node v29.0 on the Alice OpenTimestamps calendar. Over approximately 20 hours, a series of transactions with nVersion=3 were broadcasted, capturing the attention and response from various mining entities.

The data collected from this short-term study revealed that the transactions were exclusively mined by Foundry USA, F2Pool, and MARA, holding 28%, 10%, and 8% of hash power respectively. This outcome is particularly notable as Antpool, another significant mining pool, did not mine any V3 transactions despite having multiple opportunities to do so at high fee rates. This absence suggests a deliberate choice or technical limitation in Antpool's operations, potentially extending to Antpool proxies as well.

There is speculation about whether Foundry USA or F2Pool are actively following the TRUC standardness rules. Conversations with representatives from MARA suggest they might not be adhering strictly based on their backend operations. This raises questions about the propagation and acceptance of V3 transactions across the network. Despite the possible issues with propagation, it's indicated that up-to-date Libre Relay nodes are capable of relaying V3 transactions efficiently, given their robust connectivity. This implies that if Antpool accepted V3 transactions, their sufficient node infrastructure should technically allow them to receive these transactions without issue.

The experiment was described as brief, acknowledging the possibility that some smaller miners capable of mining V3/TRUC transactions might have been overlooked. Due to the observed limited hash power support for mining V3 transactions, a decision was made to revert the settings to avoid unnecessary delays in timestamps. The sharing of these findings aims to contribute valuable insights into the behaviors surrounding the mining of specific transaction versions within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

For those interested in supporting or learning more about the project involved in this experiment, links were provided to facilitate donations towards OpenTimestamps transaction fees and further exploration of related resources: Geyser Fund for OpenTimestamps, Alice BTC Calendar for OpenTimestamps, and Peter Todd's personal website.