Published on: 2018-03-09T18:40:34+00:00
The email thread on the bitcoin-dev mailing list discusses the relaxation of some of the Denial of Service (DoS) prevention rules to open up more use cases and adoption. The issue of institutional wallets sweeping incoming payments and sweeping unconfirmed outputs is raised, but it is believed that this behavior is unintentional. It is suggested that if people start using the new replacement behavior, then institutions doing these sweeps may stop doing it. The development of a reasonable standard Replace-by-Fee (RBF) policy that aligns with miner incentives is discussed as miners prefer transactions with higher package fee rates. The weakening of DoS protections is not considered a huge problem, and it is proposed to try relaxing some of the rules in a release and see what happens.In a discussion about Bitcoin's Replace-by-Fee (RBF) policy, Russell O'Connor suggested that replaced transactions should require a fee increase of at least the min-fee-rate times the size of all the transactions being ejected. Peter Todd raised concerns about weakening anti-DoS protections, but O'Connor clarified that he was not suggesting removing them entirely. The issue of institutional wallets sweeping unconfirmed outputs was also discussed as they seem to be happy to sweep unconfirmed outputs, which is potentially problematic. Additionally, there was a discussion about miner incentives and developing a reasonable standard RBF policy that aligns with those incentives. There was some disagreement about whether miners and full nodes have slightly different priorities. Nonetheless, Todd agreed to try the new replacement behavior in a release and see what happens. If people use this new replacement behavior, it may discourage institutions from sweeping unconfirmed outputs, which can be dangerous in reorgs.Peter Todd and Russell O'Connor were discussing the proposed change in RBF policy. Peter Todd pointed out that replacing a transaction without paying fees is identical to what an attacker is trying to do, making any such scheme vulnerable to attack. Russell argued that the current policy is problematic in practice where normal transactions are being performed and no one is attacking each other. However, Peter countered that the argument is not valid as normal users creating issues has nothing to do with relaxing anti-DoS protections. He suggested that replaced transactions require a fee increase of at least min-fee-rate times the size of all the transactions being ejected (in addition to the other proposed requirements). Moreover, Peter questioned how often non-attacking users face issues, but Russell pointed out that institutional wallets sweeping incoming payments regularly cause this problem. They also discussed miners' preference for higher package fee rates regardless of personal preferred RBF policies, making it important to develop a reasonable standard RBF policy that aligns with miner incentives and is robust against possible DoS vectors. This change in RBF policy can partially mitigate the problem of pinned transactions.Russell O'Connor proposed a change in RBF policy, but Peter Todd argued that solving this problem is impossible because it opens up an attack by relaxing anti-DoS protections. Todd stated that normal users creating issues does not happen often and can be avoided by skipping the use of RBF replacements if someone spends an unconfirmed output that was sent to them. He also pointed out that the argument of normal users not attacking each other has nothing to do with the issue at hand and that any protection scheme will be as vulnerable to attack as not having protection in the first place. Ultimately, Todd suggested that the attack may not be important enough to matter.In an email exchange, Peter Todd and Russell O'Connor discussed the possibility of solving the problem of replacing transactions that have been offered a new transaction with a higher fee rate. Todd expressed his belief that it is not possible to solve this issue because someone has already consumed network bandwidth that should be paid for with fees. He stated that any attempt to replace a transaction without paying those fees would be vulnerable to attack and likened it to what an attacker would try to do. However, he did mention that if the attack isn't significant enough, it may not matter. O'Connor agreed with Todd's assessment but still believes that pursuing the proposed change in Replace-by-Fee (RBF) policy is worthwhile as the current policy is problematic in practice for normal transactions.In a discussion on the Bitcoin Development mailing list, Peter Todd expressed his opinion that it is not possible to solve the problem of unconfirmed payments. Specifically, he was referring to the case where Alice resends her unconfirmed payment. He believes that an attack aimed at replacing a transaction without paying fees would be just as vulnerable as not having any protection in place at all. Todd suggests that solving this issue may not be of great importance and could be tolerated. Russell O'Connor had asked Todd for clarification on whether he meant there was a specific problem with a proposal to replace transactions when offered a new transaction whose fee rate exceeds the package fee rate of the original transaction or if there was another issue he foresees.On February 14, 2018, a discussion took place on the bitcoin-dev mailing list regarding the computation.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T22:41:40.917212+00:00