Re: [bitcoin-dev] Committed bloom filters for improved wallet performance and SPV security

[Chris Priest <cp368202@ohiou.edu>]

On 1/3/17, Jonas Schnelli via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> There are plenty, more sane options. If you can't run your own full-node
> as a merchant (trivial), maybe co-use a wallet-service with centralized
> verification (maybe use two of them), I guess Copay would be one of
> those wallets (as an example). Use them in watch-only mode.

The best way is to connect to the mempool of each miner and check to
see if they have your txid in their mempool.

https://www.antpool.com/api/is_in_mempool?txid=334847bb...
https://www.f2pool.com/api/is_in_mempool?txid=334847bb...
https://bw.com/api/is_in_mempool?txid=334847bb...
https://bitfury.com/api/is_in_mempool?txid=334847bb...
https://btcc.com/api/is_in_mempool?txid=334847bb...

If each of these services return "True", and you know those services
so not engage in RBF, then you can assume with great confidence that
your transaction will be in the next block, or in a block very soon.
If any one of those services return "False", then you must assume that
it is possible that there is a double spend floating around, and that
you should wait to see if that tx gets confirmed. The problem is that
not every pool runs such a service to check the contents of their
mempool...

This is an example of mining centralization increasing the security of
zero confirm. If more people mined, this method will not work as well
because it would require you to call the API of hundreds of different
potential block creators.