Author: Gregory Maxwell 2015-02-12 19:49:29
Published on: 2015-02-12T19:49:29+00:00
In a conversation on Bitcointalk forum in 2015, users discussed the possibility of Bitcoin miners engaging in double spending and whether it has already happened given that some miners have dropped out due to hardware obsolescence. Jeff Garzik argued that Bitcoin is a settlement system by design and consensus takes time, which means that the blockchain cannot support all transactions. He suggested that further layers are necessary to achieve the goal of a decentralized payment network capable of supporting full global traffic. Mike Hearn agreed with Garzik's views and expressed no strong opinion about replace-by-fee (RBF). Alex Mizrahi disagreed with the notion that double spending has not happened merely because no one has exploited vulnerabilities yet. He cited the example of Peercoin, which was actively attacked with stake grinding and had to use developer-signed blocks to prevent the attacker from mining all the blocks. However, Mizrahi agreed that an absence of attacks does not imply an absence of vulnerability and warned against assuming things that people do not fully understand. The participants also discussed the game theory behind miners' decisions and the need for RBF to be debated on its own merits rather than relying on assumptions about miners' behaviour.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T19:48:58.256552+00:00