bitcoin-dev

Combined summary - Transaction Input/Output Sorting

Combined summary - Transaction Input/Output Sorting

A script was written by Ryan to test the popularity of bip69 and randomization in transactions.

The results showed that only 42% of transactions were bip69 when randomized, indicating that randomization is currently more popular than bip69. However, with more inputs and outputs, bip69 can be determined with high confidence. Gregory Maxwell commented on this, stating that randomly ordered two-input transactions have a 50% chance of following bip69, making the reported 60% adherence to bip69 a small minority.Chris Belcher expressed gratitude for bringing attention to the topic and mentioned that around 60% of transactions follow bip69 according to statistics provided by p2sh.info/dashboard/db/bip-69-stats. However, he noted that this percentage may be due to chance, as a transaction with two inputs ordered randomly has a 50% chance of following bip69. Therefore, the percentage of transactions following bip69 appears to be a small minority.There was a suggestion to create a bitcoin wiki page to track wallets that use bip69, which would make it easier to determine which wallets can have code written for them and which ones can be bugged about bip69. Ryan Havar expressed concerns about the fungibility of bitcoin and the reliance on blockchain analysis and centralized analytics services, which could harm its value and history.The email exchange also discussed the difficulty in detecting wallet boundaries in bitcoin transactions. Currently, it is possible to determine if a transaction uses bip69 or not, but it is harder to establish wallet boundaries because an outside observer cannot tell if a transaction uses deterministic sorting or not. This raises concerns about the fungibility of bitcoin and the effectiveness of blockchain analysis, which relies heavily on fragile heuristics and can be easily tricked.Ryan Havar expressed concern over how easy it is to spot the boundaries between different wallets and suggested a potential solution of deterministic sorting based on a semi-secret. This approach would involve using a standardized sort order based on a semi-secret called the "sortingSecret," which would allow for external verification of correct sorting while appearing totally randomized. This solution addresses the impasse between wallets that prefer deterministic sorting and those that object to it due to privacy loss and future incompatibility concerns.

Discussion History

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October 21, 2018 19:00 UTC
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October 21, 2018 21:54 UTC
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October 22, 2018 01:54 UTC
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October 23, 2018 14:29 UTC
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October 24, 2018 16:12 UTC
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October 24, 2018 17:52 UTC
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October 24, 2018 18:21 UTC