Why is there a constant background transactional commit on the nodes?

Question

I am just getting started with MultiChain and have set up a network of 2 nodes. There is a constant background transactional workload on the nodes that is not triggered by any user action. Is this down to some parameters on the node set-up to have a heartbeat to the network to ensure that everything is operational and secure?

I see automatic transactions being committed to the blockchain every 8 minutes, which is a little confusing as it does not represent real business activity

I would like to know how to control this frequency or stop it all together

Thanks

Neil

Answer 1

The start of the explanation is that every block contains a single transaction called the "coinbase". In a permissioned blockchain, this is where the signature of the block validator is embedded, to prove the block's origin. (In a permissionless blockchain it's also used to assign the block rewards.)

So the real issue here is that your chain is continuing to generate blocks when there are no new transactions. Please see the mine-empty-rounds blockchain parameter which can control this. The value of building at least some empty blocks is to lock down the data in previous blocks, by the other participants in the network.

Note that if your chain is in the setup phrase, the mine-empty-rounds parameter is not applied, and empty blocks will always continue to be generated until that phase is compete (default 60 blocks).

Comments

Thanks for your really swift response. That makes sense