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Altruistic Rebroadcasting - A Partial Replacement Cycling Mitigation

Altruistic Rebroadcasting - A Partial Replacement Cycling Mitigation

Original Postby Peter Todd

Posted on: December 17, 2023 10:57 UTC

In the discussion regarding the necessity and implementation of a local replacement cache for transactions, it is argued that such a cache might not be essential.

This is because an altruistic entity could provide a caching service for all nodes. The suggestion includes the practice of only broadcasting transactions that meet a minimum fee threshold, allowing for better management of transactions that are more likely to be mined in a timely manner. Furthermore, the implementation of BIP-133 feefilter is cited as another solution that helps in managing transaction broadcasts by setting a fee rate threshold, which nodes communicate to their peers to prevent receiving low-fee transactions.

An analysis was presented, considering a worst-case scenario where an attacker with considerable financial resources—potentially enough to carry out a 51% attack—could affect the network. However, even in this extreme circumstance, the cost of storing the entire replacement database in RAM is estimated to be under $1000. This implies that the potential impact of such an attack may not be as severe as anticipated due to other limiting factors like peer-to-peer (P2P) bandwidth constraints. It is posited that these bandwidth limitations would naturally result in inconsistencies across node mempools, irrespective of whether any form of altruistic transaction broadcasting is implemented.

For further reference and a deeper understanding of the concepts discussed, including the BIP-133 feefilter mechanism, readers can visit the link provided: BIP-133 feefilter on GitHub. The author's contact information is also available, with a slight adjustment required to obtain the correct email address, by removing the last character from 'peter'.