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Instant transactions are actually safe for nearly all applications. Try buying something for BTC at some point; the confirmation will happen in 5-10 seconds.
by vbuterin 13y ago
Instant transactions are actually safe for nearly all applications. Try buying something for BTC at some point; the confirmation will happen in 5-10 seconds.
- maaku 13y agoNo, they are absolutely not (and reception of a transaction is not confirmation). Zero confirmation transactions rely on the default behavior of bitcoind, which is not protocol enforced. There is a patch that adds replace-for-fee, and market dynamics will pressure miners to adopt it.
- aminok 13y agoMiners have not included 'replace by fee' rules in four years, despite the short term financial incentive of doing so. There's no reason to believe any significant portion of miners will adopt the patch in the future either, because mining pools have a long term interest in the success of Bitcoin as a whole, and adding replacement for fee would jeopardize it.
- maaku 13y agoNo, adding replace-for-fee would remove the false sense of security people have about accepting zero-conf transactions. Zero-conf transactions are not safe, and can be gamed on the current station. Dispelling beliefs to the contrary is in the long-term interest of bitcoin.