Re: [Bitcoin-development] replace-by-fee v0.10.0rc4

["Jorge Timón" <jtimon@jtimon.cc>]

On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 11:47 PM, Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@bitpay.com> wrote:
> "scorched earth" refers to the _real world_ impact such policies would
> have on present-day 0-conf usage within the bitcoin community.

When I posted this: http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32263765/
Peter Todd clarified that the concept was referred to as "scorched earth"
http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32264039/

Like I said I don't like the name and would prefer "stag hunting"
which is more formal and precise.
Some people seem to use the same term for "the potential undesirable
consequences of widely deployed replace-by-fee policies".
I'm not sure that concept deserves its own term.

> All payment processors AFAIK process transactions through some scoring
> system, then accept 0-conf transactions for payments.
>
> This isn't some theoretical exercise.  Like it or not many use
> insecure 0-conf transactions for rapid payments.  Deploying something
> that makes 0-conf transactions unusable would have a wide, negative
> impact on present day bitcoin payments, thus "scorched earth"

And maybe by maintaining first seen policies we're harming the system
in the long term by encouraging people to widely deploy systems based
on extremely weak assumptions.