Author: Antoine Riard 2020-02-09 22:32:41
Published on: 2020-02-09T22:32:41+00:00
The discussion on bitcoin-dev mailing list revolves around the privacy concerns related to Taproot design. It is suggested that users may care more about privacy when contesting a close of a channel or other script path, as miners could extract rent from them as "ransom" for properly closing their channel. However, any time-sensitive transaction will likely leak its "contestness" by the setting of its nSequence/nLocktime fields. This is not tied to Taproot design and is applicable to any off-chain protocols. Timelocks are also identified as a privacy leak and miner-withholding vector. Confidential enforcement of timelocks is desired but it's another debate. Responding purely to one point, Matt Corallo clarifies that if there is a clearly-provided optimization for the common case of N of N opt-out in the protocol, then it becomes further likely that developers put in the additional effort required to make this possibility a reality. This has a significant positive impact on user privacy, especially those who wish to utilize more advanced functionality in Bitcoin. Further, it is anticipated that the N of N case is possible to take in the vast majority of deployed use-cases for advanced scripting systems, ensuring that it is maximally efficient to do so (and thereby encouraging developers to do so) is a key goal in this work.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T23:27:23.455245+00:00