Published on: 2013-05-09T12:20:05+00:00
In an email conversation between Adam Back and Peter Todd, concerns are raised about conflicting double-spends with different payee and change addresses. Todd explains that the current mechanism for Bitcoin is the best available option but acknowledges that net-splits can weaken it. He suggests implementing a safety margin in fees to protect against after-the-fact blockchain analysis. Additionally, Todd raises a question about stopping both bids from being processed if they are too flexibly different.Todd responds to Back's concerns by explaining that the patch makes the concept of a 0-confirm double-spend obsolete. He argues that relying on the behavior of major miners and nodes for payments is not ideal and suggests not giving people a false sense of security.A discussion thread on the Bitcoin forum reveals concerns about the replace-by-fee patch, as it could potentially make double-spending easier. However, the patch addresses this issue by making double-spending impossible and providing more flexibility for users. Some argue that fee revisions should only be valid if every aspect of the revision remains unchanged except for the reward, while others believe this violates privacy. The patch allows for a simple replacement without further rules, allowing the fee adjustment process to continue indefinitely.Another thread on BitcoinTalk discusses the idea of replace-by-fee and how it could make 0-confirm double-spends easier. However, Adam argues against this notion and emphasizes that validation of fee revisions should include keeping every aspect of the revision unchanged except for the reward. A replace-by-fee implementation has been released on the testnet, but it is vulnerable to DoS attacks and does not include an "undo" RPC command or fee adjustments. Users are advised against mining on the mainnet with this implementation.Bitcoin developers Peter Todd and Adam Back have released a replace-by-fee implementation on the testnet after consulting with affected sites and requests from vulnerable parties. The implementation is available at testnet-replace-by-fee.bitcoin.petertodd.org. Users can test the server by using the raw transaction API and manually creating replacement transactions. The implementation does not include recursive fee evaluation to allow for gradual adoption. Peter Todd will receive the full reward for his work, despite it not being 100% complete, due to his concern for proper implementation and working with vulnerable sites.Overall, the discussions and implementations of replace-by-fee aim to address concerns about conflicting double-spends and provide a more secure and flexible solution for Bitcoin transactions.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T04:51:29.820188+00:00