Author: Anthony Towns 2022-10-20 07:22:34
Published on: 2022-10-20T07:22:34+00:00
In a Bitcoin-dev thread, Sergej Kotliar mentioned that FX risk is the biggest risk in accepting bitcoin payments, not zeroconf risk. He stated that committing to a certain BTCUSD rate ahead of time for a purchase exposes merchants to FX risk and some transactions lose money to FX while others earn money. Kotliar also expressed concern about an easily accessible feature to cancel transactions in wallets, which would be systematically abused and result in more loss on many payments. Kotliar discussed how non-RBF zeroconf can be fooled only if someone has access to mining infrastructure, and the probability of success is the percentage of hash rate controlled. Regarding Lightning, Kotliar mentioned that it currently accounts for around 15% of total Bitcoin payments, but he thinks that discussions about whether to disable on-chain commerce should happen when Lightning reaches 80% or more of all Bitcoin transactions. Kotliar acknowledged that the benefits of Lightning are many and obvious, and there is no need to limit on-chain commerce to make Lightning more appealing. However, he expressed his doubts about the efficacy of RBF to "unstuck" stuck transactions, stating that most users do not have access to the functionality and explaining how to use it is too complex for non-power-users. Kotliar also ruled out CPFP as a solution due to the UX issues associated with it.
Updated on: 2023-05-22T21:32:18.387024+00:00