On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Adam Ritter <arit...@gmail.com> wrote: > Isn't a faster blockchain for transactions (maybe as a sidechain) solving > the problem? If there would be a safe way for 0-confirmation transactions, > the Bitcoin blockchain wouldn't even be needed.
Large scale consensus can't generally provide instantly irreversible transactions directly: Increasing the block speed can't help past the point where the time starts getting close to the network diameter... you simply can't tell what a consensus of a group of nodes is until several times the light cone that includes all of them. And if you start getting close to the limit you dilute the power working on the consensus and potentially make life easier for a large attacker. Maybe other chains with different parameters could achieve a different tradeoff which was better suited to low value retail transactions (e.g. where you want a soft confirmation fast). A choice of tradeoffs could be very useful, and maybe you can practically get close enough (e.g. would knowing you lost a zero-conf double spend within 30 seconds 90% of the time be good enough?)... but I'm not aware of any silver bullet there which gives you something identical to what a centralized service can give you without invoking at least a little bit of centralization. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Start Your Social Network Today - Download eXo Platform Build your Enterprise Intranet with eXo Platform Software Java Based Open Source Intranet - Social, Extensible, Cloud Ready Get Started Now And Turn Your Intranet Into A Collaboration Platform http://p.sf.net/sfu/ExoPlatform _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
