Assume some very “sturdy” miner that may produce a brand new block (discover a appropriate nonce) on common each 3 minutes. All the pieces is ok so long as he units the fitting timestamp (the one corresponding to three minutes on common), as a result of that means the issue will improve (the goal will lower) and the typical 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 really 3?

In that case the block timestamps correspond to 10 minutes, however the blocks had been really 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 ready for 10 and never 3 minutes), which permits the malicious miner to additional have a monopoly over the community. Additionally, it moreover means that we are going to really attain 2016 blocks (when retargeting is finished) in 14/3 (say ~5) days as a substitute of 14 days.

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

How does the community defend itself from this sort of assault?