BSV blocks are getting orphaned

As per Trust Nodes, the Bitcoin SV(BSV) network has gone back in history by six blocks or more, orphaning a number of blocks in the process. This marks the latest twist in the BSV tale which was highlighted by the token getting delisted by a number of prominent exchanges a few days ago.

Nikita Zhavoronkov, lead dev at a blockchain explorer Blockchair, said about the matter:

“Almost each time someone is trying to produce a very large block on the BSV chain, there’s a reorg. Just an hour ago our Blockchair engine has witnessed a 3-block reorg (I think that’s a record)!” 

This record was soon broken, as Zhavoronkov updated:

“Whoops! BSV has experienced yet another reorg, this time 6 (six!) consecutive blocks were orphaned (#578640–578645), this chain included a 128 MB block #578644. The network was basically stuck for 1.5 hours, and this shows that even 6 confirmations are not enough…

There were 3 very big blocks. They got orphaned by a chain of 4 blocks which later grew up to 6 blocks. The new chain was orphaned by the initial one when it grew back up to 7 blocks.”

The block size of the orphaned blocks is pretty huge, and it is still unclear as to why they were being mined in the first place. It has been hypothesized that there has been some sort of fight or confusion between the miners which has led to the network disruption.

Chris Pacia, of OpenBazaar and a BCH dev, shed further light on the block sizes:

“This is basically exactly the problem the BU gigabock testnet identified. At sizes > 100mb the mempools were so out of sync that blocks were basically transmitted as full blocks.

BSV had ONE 128mb block and it caused a six block reorg. On the BU testnet sustained 128mb blocks caused a total breakdown of the chain where there were so many reorgs that every node had a different view of the state of the blockchain.

And would you believe barely a day goes by where the BSV supporters don’t mock me pointing this out as if it’s sooooo obvious how wrong I was.”