Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Contradiction in BIP65 text?

From: Gregory Maxwell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 00:29:51 +0000

On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 11:58 PM, Jeff Garzik via bitcoin-dev
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 4:48 PM, xor via bitcoin-dev
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>> This clearly says that funds can be frozen.
>> Can the BIP65-thing be used to freeze funds or can it not be?
> This language definitely trips up or worries several folks - it's been
> mentioned a few times before.
>
> The user _chooses_ to freeze _their own_ funds.  It is not an unwilling act
> of force, which many assume when they see the phrase "freeze funds."

The most frequent related point of confusion I see is that people have
a dangerously wrong mental model of how scrpitpubkeys work.

It seems people think that wallets will infer whatever they can
possibly spend and display that.  This is not how wallets work, and if
any wallet were ever created like that its users would immediately go
broke (and it's author should be taken out and shot. :) ).

Rather, wallets must only display funds paid to scriptpubkeys (also
addresses) they actually generated or, at least, would have generated.

Otherwise someone can just create a 1 of 2 {them, you}  multisig and
then claw back the coins after you think you've been paid.

As such there is no risk of anyone sneaking in CLTV locked funds for
on you except by virtue of spectacular software bugs that would likely
cause you to destroy funds in a zillion other ways first.