GetBlockTemplate interface
getblocktemplate is a now deprecated protocol used to transmit block template information from nodes to remote hash machines. It was developed in 2012 and superceded the original "getwork" protocol.
Reasons for development
The original getwork protocol only provided ASIC miners with a single block header, which was sufficient for a total of 4 GH of mining. With the "rollntime" extension, this was extended to 4 GH *per second*, but even that was far from sufficient for mining equipment at the time which was already capable of 1000 GH/s on the high end.
Attribution
This content is based on content sourced from https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Getblocktemplate under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Although it may have been extensively revised and updated we acknowledge the original authors.