Author: Anthony Towns 2022-10-26 23:52:10
Published on: 2022-10-26T23:52:10+00:00
Bitcoin Core's mempool policy has become a topic of debate among contributors. The proposal is to deprecate opt-in Replace-By-Fee (RBF) in favor of full-RBF, which would allow users to replace any unconfirmed transaction with a different one. However, this change could lead to harmful behavior and eliminate legitimate use-cases, according to some arguments.Currently, the differences between node policies on Bitcoin Core are quite small, making the Full Replace-by-Fee (full RBF) option controversial for some but widely liked by developers. If users were given too much control over their mempool policies, it could create controversy and cause problems.Assuming this represents a change in direction for Bitcoin Core, it is worth considering the consequences of allowing users to choose their mempool policies. Users will still only be able to choose from options that people write code for, and they will need a path all the way to miners through nodes that will accept their transaction at every step. One approach to this problem is setting a service bit and preferentially peering with other nodes that advertise that service bit. Another approach is having a separate relay network, such as the one used by lightning nodes.The article argues that gradual deployments of mempool policies may be problematic, leading to centralization pressures and privacy concerns. Instead, they suggest that people outside of core could recommend a mempool configuration and Core could provide an option to make it easy to implement. However, there are potential downsides to this approach, as users/devs would not be making much use of the choices offered by Core in making different options available.Overall, finding a reliable solution to the mempool policy issue is complex and requires input from zeroconf businesses, lightning and coinjoin devs, miners, etc. It is important to consider the potential consequences of any changes made to the mempool policy, including the effects on users and developers.
Updated on: 2023-05-22T22:11:44.158582+00:00