Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Eliminating double-spends with two-party self-escrow for high value transactions

From: Peter Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 15:37:59 -0400

On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 02:31:19PM -0400, Peter Todd wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 08:07:58PM +0200, Mike Hearn wrote:
> > What stops the buyer just always waiting to get their money back?
> 
> The seller won't hand over the goods of course until they have a valid
> transaction signed by the buyer sending them the escrowed funds. (and
> the nLockTime deadline is sufficiently far away that the probability of
> not being able to get the transaction mined in time is low)
> 
> Note how the mechanism I'm proposing is basically just a Jeremy
> Spilman-style micropayment channel(1) used for a single payment; I
> should have made that clear in my original post.
> 
> 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg02028.html

I swear, I'm getting alzheimers or something. This and stealth addresses
is now the second time I've totally forgotten I had just read an idea a
week prior:

Reddit user RubenSomsen, ten days ago:

"I would really like it if Mycelium allowed me to temporarily lock my
bitcoins in a 2-of-2 transaction with a potential buyer (of course with
nlocktime back to myself) so the network can start confirming the
transaction before we even meet."
-http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/236k5d/mycelium_local_trader_is_now_available/cgtxede

Better explanation than mine too for someone wanting a quick intro.

-- 
'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
000000000000000038a12e1b8bc9562cddc5cfa24ba7c418f4b945f6b1677e41