Author: Stanga 2020-06-23 12:47:56
Published on: 2020-06-23T12:47:56+00:00
The email exchange discusses the assumption in Bitcoin that miners are short-sighted. The author believes that the unstated assumption is based on the possibility of deployment of new mining hardware controlled by others at any time and sudden changes in hashpower distribution that may reduce expected future earnings, leading to a discount on future theoretical earnings. However, the analysis assumes constant difficulty, and the factors mentioned are not expected to dramatically change within a day. Furthermore, the author analyzes the effect of miners joining during the HTLC duration. Alice can bump up the fee with RBF or CPFP if an HTLC is confirmed but the hashlock-claiming transaction is not confirmed. As the timeout approaches, Alice can bump up its fee until it is just 1 satoshi short of the total fund. Rational Bob will not even begin this game knowing the endpoint. In contrast, MAD-HTLC achieves security without relying on certain assumptions in HTLC.MAD-HTLC comprises two contracts (UTXOs), Deposit, holding the intended HTLC tokens with three redeem paths, Bob, Alice, and miner, and Collateral, the fidelity bond, which doesn't have to be of the same amount. Only Bob initially knows preimage "B," and he must reveal it if he wishes to get the Deposit tokens. If Alice publishes preimage "A," Bob can safely publish preimage "B" and get both the Deposit and Collateral tokens after the timeout. If she does not publish it, Bob gets nothing, and neither does Alice.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T02:33:14.387196+00:00