Author: odinn 2015-06-20 20:04:48
Published on: 2015-06-20T20:04:48+00:00
The provided context discusses two separate discussions on the implications of Bitcoin for users and businesses. The first discussion revolves around Coinbase's decision to restrict firearms businesses from accepting Bitcoins via Coinbase, which has resulted in a debate over alternate payment options. The second discussion focuses on F2Pool, the largest mining pool with 21% of the hashing power, enabling full replace-by-fee (RBF) support after discussions with Peter Todd. Todd highlights that wallet software aimed at average users cannot detect double-spends of unconfirmed transactions when connected to a RBF or Bitcoin XT node that propagates them.For businesses using their own nodes to verify transactions, this change means very little. However, for those using a payment processor/transaction API such as BitPay, Coinbase, BlockCypher, etc., accepting unconfirmed transactions may create risks. If merchants use APIs where confirmations are required prior to accepting orders, nothing changes. But if not, they should contact their payment processor. Peter Todd explains that decentralized wallets have only a handful of connections to the network, with no way of accurately knowing if those connections give an accurate view of what transactions miners actually know about. The provided context includes links to various articles and reports related to Bitcoin's network. The first link is to an article from Coindesk in which the CEO of Chainalysis denies launching a "sybil attack" on Bitcoin's network. The second link is to an email thread on the Bitcoin-development mailing list discussing First-Seen-Safe Replace-by-Fee, while the third link is to another email on the same list discussing cost savings using replace-by-fee. The fourth link is to a report by Arthur Gervais, Hubert Ritzdorf, Ghassan O. Karame, and Srdjan Capkun titled "Tampering with the Delivery of Blocks and Transactions in Bitcoin." Finally, the context includes information about Abis, a protocol concept aimed at enabling decentralization and expansion of a given economy, along with a PGP signature. Todd also provides references for obtaining the full replace-by-fee patch, additional code to find and preferentially connect to other RBF nodes, and tools to watch double-spends on the network. The long-term benefits of miner support for full RBF include more efficient transactions and lower fees. However, no wallets currently support these features. Wallets like Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet for Android cannot even detect the least sophisticated double-spend attack possibly. In contrast, centralized wallets have attempted to predict the probability that unconfirmed transactions will be mined, often guaranteeing merchants payment even in the event of a double-spend. However, these predictions waste significant network and miner resources and can also create incentives for double-spend attackers to sybil attack miners themselves. Todd also discusses the problems with transaction processing contracts with miners, which can be used to double-spend even when being used "honestly." He cites serious problems with this approach, such as the risk of 51% attacks and legal contracts favoring non-anonymous miners in western jurisdictions.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T23:49:42.676433+00:00