Mike Hearn <mike <at> plan99.net> writes: > Please see https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/3883 which implements this exact scheme. It can solve some kinds of double spends (probably), but others - like ones done by corrupt miners (see bitundo) - can't be solved this way.
I read the comments on the PR. I mean no disrespect but this patch can't prevent double spends minutes apart and a solution is as good as it's weakest link. It also seems to suffer from potential ddos and otherwise may provide a false sense of security. I wouldn't call it a solution in sight just yet. > Lawrence's motivation for this BIP is essentially to act as a backup in case the Bitcoin native double spending protections end up being too weak to be useful. It reintroduces a notion of centralised trust as a layer on top of the Bitcoin protocol, but only for cases where the seller/recipient feels it'd be useful. In this way it gives us slack: if someone is able to reliably double spend and the merchants losses due to payment fraud go up, we can fall back to TTPs for a while until someone finds a solution for Bitcoin, or we just give up on the Bitcoin experiment, but hey - at least we now have a better intermediary protocol than SWIFT I wouldn't put it just like that. Sure, it's a backup to the double spend solution in case we don't reach one - but also, even if you reach some reasonable compromise I assume it won't be instant and instant confirmation between exchanges can create huge arbitrage opportunities and as such liquidity. It's not really aimed at the merchant but more at service providers and payment processors - or simply, between users that don't know each other in local traders environments/squares, assuming they are ok trusting a known/respected/reputable third party. > In practice of course this is something payment processors like Bitpay and Coinbase will think about. Individual cafes etc who are just using mobile wallets won't be able to deal with this complexity: if we can't make native Bitcoin work well enough there, we're most likely to just lose that market or watch it become entirely centralised around a handful of payment processing companies. What do you expect for e-commerce and escrow to happen? Don't you think the market will naturally converge to a handful of hubs that will helps with refunds and things like that? Or do you expect to just 'trust' all people on online markets and smaller unknown online shops? I mean, the beauty of Bitcoin is that it brings much more transparency and the tools to build such things without huge barriers to entry and without using closed protocols - not that it solves _every_ problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HPCC Systems Open Source Big Data Platform from LexisNexis Risk Solutions Find What Matters Most in Your Big Data with HPCC Systems Open Source. Fast. Scalable. Simple. Ideal for Dirty Data. Leverages Graph Analysis for Fast Processing & Easy Data Exploration http://p.sf.net/sfu/hpccsystems _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development