diff --git a/src/validation.cpp b/src/validation.cpp
index 52c636c8151..55cc721a04b 100644
--- a/src/validation.cpp
+++ b/src/validation.cpp
@@ -2091,7 +2091,6 @@ void Chainstate::InvalidBlockFound(CBlockIndex* pindex, const BlockValidationSta
     AssertLockHeld(cs_main);
     if (state.GetResult() != BlockValidationResult::BLOCK_MUTATED) {
         pindex->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_VALID;
-        m_chainman.m_failed_blocks.insert(pindex);
         m_blockman.m_dirty_blockindex.insert(pindex);
         setBlockIndexCandidates.erase(pindex);
         InvalidChainFound(pindex);
@@ -3810,7 +3809,6 @@ bool Chainstate::InvalidateBlock(BlockValidationState& state, CBlockIndex* pinde
             pindex->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_VALID;
             m_blockman.m_dirty_blockindex.insert(pindex);
             setBlockIndexCandidates.erase(pindex);
-            m_chainman.m_failed_blocks.insert(pindex);
         }
 
         // If any new blocks somehow arrived while we were disconnecting
@@ -3878,7 +3876,6 @@ void Chainstate::ResetBlockFailureFlags(CBlockIndex *pindex) {
                 // Reset invalid block marker if it was pointing to one of those.
                 m_chainman.m_best_invalid = nullptr;
             }
-            m_chainman.m_failed_blocks.erase(&block_index);
         }
     }
 
@@ -3887,7 +3884,6 @@ void Chainstate::ResetBlockFailureFlags(CBlockIndex *pindex) {
         if (pindex->nStatus & BLOCK_FAILED_MASK) {
             pindex->nStatus &= ~BLOCK_FAILED_MASK;
             m_blockman.m_dirty_blockindex.insert(pindex);
-            m_chainman.m_failed_blocks.erase(pindex);
         }
         pindex = pindex->pprev;
     }
@@ -4383,45 +4379,6 @@ bool ChainstateManager::AcceptBlockHeader(const CBlockHeader& block, BlockValida
             LogDebug(BCLog::VALIDATION, "%s: Consensus::ContextualCheckBlockHeader: %s, %s\n", __func__, hash.ToString(), state.ToString());
             return false;
         }
-
-        /* Determine if this block descends from any block which has been found
-         * invalid (m_failed_blocks), then mark pindexPrev and any blocks between
-         * them as failed. For example:
-         *
-         *                D3
-         *              /
-         *      B2 - C2
-         *    /         \
-         *  A             D2 - E2 - F2
-         *    \
-         *      B1 - C1 - D1 - E1
-         *
-         * In the case that we attempted to reorg from E1 to F2, only to find
-         * C2 to be invalid, we would mark D2, E2, and F2 as BLOCK_FAILED_CHILD
-         * but NOT D3 (it was not in any of our candidate sets at the time).
-         *
-         * In any case D3 will also be marked as BLOCK_FAILED_CHILD at restart
-         * in LoadBlockIndex.
-         */
-        if (!pindexPrev->IsValid(BLOCK_VALID_SCRIPTS)) {
-            // The above does not mean "invalid": it checks if the previous block
-            // hasn't been validated up to BLOCK_VALID_SCRIPTS. This is a performance
-            // optimization, in the common case of adding a new block to the tip,
-            // we don't need to iterate over the failed blocks list.
-            for (const CBlockIndex* failedit : m_failed_blocks) {
-                if (pindexPrev->GetAncestor(failedit->nHeight) == failedit) {
-                    assert(failedit->nStatus & BLOCK_FAILED_VALID);
-                    CBlockIndex* invalid_walk = pindexPrev;
-                    while (invalid_walk != failedit) {
-                        invalid_walk->nStatus |= BLOCK_FAILED_CHILD;
-                        m_blockman.m_dirty_blockindex.insert(invalid_walk);
-                        invalid_walk = invalid_walk->pprev;
-                    }
-                    LogDebug(BCLog::VALIDATION, "header %s has prev block invalid: %s\n", hash.ToString(), block.hashPrevBlock.ToString());
-                    return state.Invalid(BlockValidationResult::BLOCK_INVALID_PREV, "bad-prevblk");
-                }
-            }
-        }
     }
     if (!min_pow_checked) {
         LogDebug(BCLog::VALIDATION, "%s: not adding new block header %s, missing anti-dos proof-of-work validation\n", __func__, hash.ToString());
diff --git a/src/validation.h b/src/validation.h
index e361c7af101..a3951a58c66 100644
--- a/src/validation.h
+++ b/src/validation.h
@@ -1038,27 +1038,6 @@ public:
     }
 
 
-    /**
-     * In order to efficiently track invalidity of headers, we keep the set of
-     * blocks which we tried to connect and found to be invalid here (ie which
-     * were set to BLOCK_FAILED_VALID since the last restart). We can then
-     * walk this set and check if a new header is a descendant of something in
-     * this set, preventing us from having to walk m_block_index when we try
-     * to connect a bad block and fail.
-     *
-     * While this is more complicated than marking everything which descends
-     * from an invalid block as invalid at the time we discover it to be
-     * invalid, doing so would require walking all of m_block_index to find all
-     * descendants. Since this case should be very rare, keeping track of all
-     * BLOCK_FAILED_VALID blocks in a set should be just fine and work just as
-     * well.
-     *
-     * Because we already walk m_block_index in height-order at startup, we go
-     * ahead and mark descendants of invalid blocks as FAILED_CHILD at that time,
-     * instead of putting things in this set.
-     */
-    std::set<CBlockIndex*> m_failed_blocks;
-
     /** Best header we've seen so far (used for getheaders queries' starting points). */
     CBlockIndex* m_best_header GUARDED_BY(::cs_main){nullptr};