Author: Troy Benjegerdes 2016-08-03 21:13:20
Published on: 2016-08-03T21:13:20+00:00
A proposal has been made on the bitcoin-dev mailing list to create a new address type that includes a reversal key and settlement layer, in response to the recent hack. The idea is to provide users with key revocation when the assumption about being the only holder of a secret is broken, as currently there is a lack of defined process to roll back unexpected behaviour in a computer system. There are two hardfork-worthy choices for implementation: reversal/revocation as an add-on feature or reversal/revocation as a fundamental that every address gets. The proposed address type would require transactions to receive N confirmations before they can't be revoked, after which the transaction is "settled" and coins become redeemable from their destination output. A settlement phase would also mean that a transaction's progress was publicly visible so transparent fraud prevention and auditing would become possible by anyone. The main use case here would be to improve centralized exchange security by making it impossible for a hot wallet to be raided all at once. The proposal builds upon existing background material, including a time-based clearing house proposal by Hacking Distributed, a similar idea for secure wallet design implemented using time-locked ECDSA keys by Matthew Roberts, and other related ideas.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T19:19:28.624268+00:00