Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] deterministic transaction expiration

From: Peter Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 10:38:23 -0700

On 6 August 2014 10:30:11 GMT-07:00, Mark Friedenbach <[email-masked]> wrote:
>On 08/06/2014 01:20 PM, Peter Todd wrote:
>> The general case doesn't require transmission of any merkle data; it
>> is derived from the tx data.
>
>How can that possibly be the case? The information is hidden behind the
>Merkle root in the transaction. The validator needs to know whether
>there is an expiry and what it is. What's it supposed to do, guess?

The general case is all committed information is included in the transaction; the merkle tree is a compatibility path, as well as an optimisation for lite clients and applications.

You should read more about soft-forks; see the BIP. Remember that Bitcoin protocol development and deployment is not a centrally controlled activity.