Author: Adam Back 2013-05-15 13:00:14
Published on: 2013-05-15T13:00:14+00:00
Peter Todd, a bitcoin developer, raised the concern that few vendors have a mechanism to detect conflicting transactions that were broadcast simultaneously on the network. He pointed out that in such cases where it is up to chance which transaction gets mined, double spending could occur unnoticed. Currently, there is no way to propagate double-spend warnings in the network. However, Todd suggested that in the case of a single txin transaction, the double-spend warning would be enough information for miners to implement replace-by-fee. Todd also proposed that double-spend results in no one keeping the money except for the fees or the whole payment being converted into a 0BTC output with 100% fees. Ideally, known double-spends should be circulated at priority in the p2p network even routed directly to earlier recipients if known. However, double-spending of even the fees in other transactions must be monitored.Todd recommended self-created fees as a solution to prevent double-spending and proposed 6-confirmation spend-to-miner green-coins. Double spends are not always binary, he noted, explaining that an attacker could spend a 25BTC coin through 50x 1BTC transactions, raising the question of which 25 are valid. Currently, it is the first 25 from the network perspective of the miner that succeeds on the current block.Todd argued that with double-spend deletes, the would-be double-spender cannot gain within the Bitcoin protocol by double-spending. However, they can benefit outside of the protocol, for instance, by persuading merchants to give them non-revocable resellable non-physical goods. Nonetheless, selling goods with no recourse will require more confirmation. Todd concluded by saying that he still doesn't think replace-by-fee is a good idea, although the discussion seemed closed.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T17:06:10.054399+00:00