Re: [Bitcoin-development] Are Instant Confirmations safe?

[Natanael <natanael.l@gmail.com>]

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Den 18 mar 2015 23:38 skrev "Dennis Sullivan" <dennis.jm.sullivan@gmail.com
>:
>
> Hello. This is my first time posting to this list. I wanted to ask your
opinions on something relating to confirmation times.
>
> I recently read about a "transaction locking" proposal which claims to
make it possible to accept 0-conf transactions with guarantee they will get
mined. This seems rather dubious to me, because if there was merit to the
system, I would have already expected to see discussion on this list
regarding it.

Sounds like it would be weak to sybil attacks (deterministically choosing
my own nodes sounds great!), and of course Finney attacks (single-block
reversal) and defecting miners (what are you gonna do, punish miners with
limited network connectivity as well? You'll risk forking the network).

Zero-conf is only safe if nobody's actively trying to attack you. It has no
inherent security in and of itself. For low values the risk is usually
tolerated. For large values there's too much risk of making yourself a
target.

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