Author: Peter Todd 2013-07-17 12:50:52
Published on: 2013-07-17T12:50:52+00:00
In an email conversation between Tamas Blummer and Peter Todd, the potential danger of using Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) mode in Bitcoin was discussed. It was suggested that if an SPV bitcoind was used, all control on validation rules would be transferred to the miner. This could lead to a majority coalition of miners changing block reward rules if the rest of the network only verifies Proof of Work (POW). The widespread dependence on SPV mode was deemed dangerous for Bitcoin due to this reason. While fraud proofs may help, they add another layer of never-before-tested crypto on top of an already poorly understood technology.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T20:12:09.704780+00:00