Author: Btc Drak 2015-02-12 16:57:35
Published on: 2015-02-12T16:57:35+00:00
In a conversation between Mike Hearn and Peter, the former argues that the replace-by-fee scheme doesn't make unconfirmed transactions safe, as a fraudster can buy something and then broadcast a double spend with a higher fee. The merchant can re-spend the original payment back to themselves, however, with an even higher fee, causing the fraudster to do the same, repeating the process until all money has been spent on miner fees. This incentivizes competitors to engage in payment fraud against each other, and it is assumed that miners won't work together with the sender of the money, though they could theoretically steal arbitrary payments. Peter argues that this misdirection is the point of replace-by-fee: to make 0-confirms reliably unreliable. Currently, people can "get away" with 0-confirms but only because most people aren't actively double spending, and when they do, it is for higher value targets. Double spend attacks are happening more frequently than is being admitted, according to Peter's work with various clients. People have gotten used to something which is bad, like single address reuse, and accepting 0-confirms is also a bad idea. Instead, instant confirmation solutions should be sought elsewhere, such as greenaddress or CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY micropayment channels. It is necessary to spend time on better alternative solutions that will work for everyone, not just during the honeymoon phase where attackers are fewer.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T16:58:51.910094+00:00