Bitcoin Association pursuing criminal charges against miner mining empty blocks

Bitcoin Association, a non-profit responsible for the Bitcoin SV (BSV) blockchain, has revealed intentions to freeze block rewards and sue a malicious miner for breach of contract, according to an Oct 16 press statement.

According to the Association, the said miner has been acting maliciously on the BSV chain since June, when he started producing empty blocks. This action has negatively affected the chain and impacted “honest miners and businesses that interact with the Bitcoin SV network.”

Wikipedia defined an empty block as a block that does not keep any transaction records other than the generation transaction.

The miner was also accused of constantly changing their Coinbase string to avoid detection. However, the Association identified the miner address to be “1KPSTuJMCMRXrTWHfCwpiRZg1ALbJzh844.”

The Association noted that while the miner’s actions have not been inherently dishonest per the whitepaper rule, his deliberate refusal to collect new transactions broadcast to a node amount to “dishonest behavior.”

“This miner is actively attacking the network in an attempt to reap block rewards while disrupting the economic activity of innocent users, businesses, and honest miners.”

Besides mining empty blocks, Bitcoin Association accused the miner of coordinated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on key network infrastructure and services.

The body revealed that attempts to reach the miner as proven abortive, It continued that it is now seeking to pursue legal actions against the miner while also urging relevant exchanges to freeze the accrued block rewards.

Meanwhile, some within the BSV community have defended the miner’s right to create empty blocks, saying it is simply an economic decision. One user pointed out that this is what decentralization is all about, and there is no breach of contract.

Satoshi rolling over in his decentralized grave ser. There is no breach of contracts only maybe breaching your social contract lol

— dirky (@dirkyville) October 17, 2022

BSV is a fork of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and currently trades for $48.65.