Author: Peter Todd 2015-02-22 01:15:02
Published on: 2015-02-22T01:15:02+00:00
The discussion on "scorched earth" and "replace-by-fee" in the Bitcoin community is centered around the impact of these policies on present-day zero confirmation (0-conf) usage within the community. The name "replace-by-fee" refers to its consideration for replacement based on fee, while "scorched earth" refers to the game theory behind the idea of the receiver combating a 0-conf double-spend by sending all the funds to fees. While many payment processors use 0-conf transactions for rapid payments, it is not without risk and there is concern that deploying replace-by-fee widely would push instant transactions into the realm of centralized, walled-garden services. However, the most vulnerable people to losses have generally changed the way they operate, such as ATM's that no longer rely on zero-conf security and instead waiting for confirmations or installing cameras. Person-to-person trading, which is the primary concern, tends to wait for confirmations or use reputation systems to protect themselves. Deploying replace-by-fee has been made into a long, drawn-out process to avoid centralization risks, but some services are already highly centralized and there is a risk of driving mining centralization itself if they fail.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T16:57:03.417119+00:00