Author: Mark Friedenbach 2014-08-06 17:21:56
Published on: 2014-08-06T17:21:56+00:00
In an email discussion on 08/06/2014, Tom Harding proposed the idea of having a first-eligible-height and last-eligible-height in which the creator could choose a lifetime shorter than the maximum, and lock the whole thing until some point in the future. However, this would be a massive change that would completely break bitcoin output frangibility, causing merchants to demand input history back to a certain depth to avoid undue reorg-expiry risk. Despite the potential for useful applications of a consensus-enforced expiry, particularly within a private (signed block) side chain, it is unlikely that this concept will become part of the public bitcoin network due to its disruptive effects. Nonetheless, discussions about the merits of an nExpiry field or BLOCK_HEIGHT / BLOCK_TIME opcode and methods for achieving either remain valuable.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T01:43:49.120943+00:00