public inbox for bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Mike Hearn <mike@plan99.net>
To: Roy Badami <roy@gnomon.org.uk>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Payment Protocol Proposal: Invoices/Payments/Receipts
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:31:24 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CANEZrP233CytLs3PWBQ1TyuBTMv4sLGJkEMeGWYq5xRi+iLKew@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20121129170713.GD6368@giles.gnomon.org.uk>

> I'd still like to understand the rationale for having the merchant
> broadcast the transaction

There are several reasons for this:

1) P2P network sockets are a limited resource and bringing up
connections to the network, whilst somewhat fast today, is not
guaranteed to be fast in future. Passing transactions to the merchant
for broadcast reduces the load on the P2P nodes because lots of thin
clients aren't any longer connecting and disconnecting when sending.
They only need to talk to the network when the user has received
money.

2) Some users may not have network connectivity at all. For example,
this happens quite often whilst traveling at Bitcoin conferences ;)
The solution, which Andreas and I prototyped in Berlin together, is
for the buyer to communicate only with the seller which can be done
over Bluetooth or WiFi Direct or some other mobile radio protocol.
Again, send only, but for the common case where you load up your
wallet before setting out and then buy things, it works OK.

4) A longer term reason - in time, people may choose to not broadcast
transactions at all in some cases. I think how network speed will be
funded post-inflation is still an open question. Assuming the simplest
arrangement where users pay fees, getting transactions into the chain
has a cost. In cases where you trust the sender to not double spend on
you, you may keep a fee-less transaction around "in your pocket". Then
when it's your turn to pay, you use some unconfirmed transactions to
do so. People pass around longer and longer chains of un-broadcast
transactions until a payment crosses a trust boundary, at which point
the receiver adds on their own transaction that spends back to himself
but with a fee, and broadcasts them all together as a unit. In this
way only people who genuinely need to fear double spends pay for
security.



  parent reply	other threads:[~2012-11-29 17:31 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 87+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2012-11-26 22:37 [Bitcoin-development] Payment Protocol Proposal: Invoices/Payments/Receipts Gavin Andresen
2012-11-26 23:02 ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-26 23:13   ` Luke-Jr
2012-11-26 23:16     ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-26 23:19       ` Luke-Jr
2012-11-26 23:27         ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-26 23:32         ` Gregory Maxwell
2012-11-26 23:44           ` Luke-Jr
2012-11-27  0:16             ` Gregory Maxwell
2012-11-27  0:26               ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-27  0:45                 ` Rick Wesson
2012-11-27  1:09                   ` Gavin
2012-11-27  8:44                   ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-27  0:44               ` Luke-Jr
2012-11-26 23:38 ` Rick Wesson
2012-11-26 23:52 ` Jeff Garzik
2012-11-27  0:02   ` Rick Wesson
2012-11-27  0:31     ` Luke-Jr
2012-11-27  0:37       ` Rick Wesson
2012-11-27  2:16 ` Walter Stanish
2012-11-27  2:47   ` Gregory Maxwell
2012-11-27  3:16     ` Walter Stanish
2012-11-27  3:29       ` Rick Wesson
2012-11-27  3:31         ` Walter Stanish
2012-11-27  3:54           ` Rick Wesson
2012-11-27  4:17             ` Walter Stanish
2012-11-27  8:43               ` Michael Gronager
2012-11-27 10:23                 ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-27 10:42                   ` Michael Gronager
2012-11-27 11:36                     ` Pieter Wuille
2012-11-27 11:46                       ` Michael Gronager
2012-11-27 12:03                     ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-27 12:39                       ` Michael Gronager
2012-11-27 14:05                         ` Gavin Andresen
2012-11-27 14:26                           ` Gavin Andresen
2012-11-28 13:55                           ` Walter Stanish
2012-11-27 17:03 ` Andy Parkins
2012-11-27 17:14   ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-27 17:26     ` Andy Parkins
2012-11-27 18:16       ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-27 21:39         ` Gavin Andresen
2012-11-28 10:43           ` Mike Hearn
2012-11-28 12:57             ` Peter Todd
2012-11-28 14:09               ` Gavin Andresen
2012-11-28  8:33 ` Peter Todd
2012-11-28 23:36 ` Roy Badami
2012-11-29  0:30   ` Watson Ladd
2012-11-29  8:16     ` slush
2012-11-29 16:11   ` Gavin Andresen
2012-11-29 17:07     ` Roy Badami
2012-11-29 17:30       ` Gavin Andresen
2012-11-29 17:31       ` Mike Hearn [this message]
2012-11-29 18:53         ` Roy Badami
2012-12-01 19:25           ` Gavin Andresen
2012-12-03 19:35             ` Mike Koss
2012-12-03 20:59               ` Gavin Andresen
2012-12-03 21:28               ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-03 22:26                 ` Roy Badami
2012-12-03 22:34                   ` Jeff Garzik
2012-12-03 22:48                     ` Roy Badami
2012-12-16 21:15               ` Melvin Carvalho
2012-12-17  2:18                 ` Jeff Garzik
2012-12-17  8:24                   ` Melvin Carvalho
2012-12-17  9:19                     ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-17  9:31                       ` Gary Rowe
2012-12-17 11:23                       ` Melvin Carvalho
2012-12-17 17:57                         ` Gavin Andresen
2012-12-20 16:53                           ` Stephen Pair
2012-12-20 17:43                             ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-20 19:32                               ` Stephen Pair
2012-12-21 17:05                                 ` Stephen Pair
2012-12-24  0:38                                   ` Elden Tyrell
2012-12-04 17:06             ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-05 19:34               ` Gavin Andresen
2012-12-06  6:31                 ` Andreas Petersson
2012-12-06  8:53                   ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-06 16:56                     ` Gavin Andresen
2012-12-06 17:55                       ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-06 19:13                         ` Gavin Andresen
2012-12-07 10:45                           ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-07 11:01                             ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-07 16:19                               ` Gavin Andresen
2012-12-07 16:27                                 ` Mike Hearn
2012-12-06 18:13                       ` Alan Reiner
     [not found]                       ` <CALf2ePx5jS@mail.gmail.com>
2014-09-17 19:28                         ` Vezalke
2012-12-03 21:42         ` Gregory Maxwell
2012-12-23  2:33 ` Mark Friedenbach

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=CANEZrP233CytLs3PWBQ1TyuBTMv4sLGJkEMeGWYq5xRi+iLKew@mail.gmail.com \
    --to=mike@plan99.net \
    --cc=bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net \
    --cc=roy@gnomon.org.uk \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox