This is outright ridiculous. Zero-confirmation double-spending is a small problem, and possible solutions are known. (E.g. trusted third party + multi-sig addresses for small-value transactions.) On the other hand, protocol changes like described above might have game-theoretical implications which are non-trivial and hard to understand. The above approach works as long as the majority of hashpower is honest, > defined to mean, working to stop double spending. This is the same security > property as described in the white paper, thus this introduces no new > security assumptions. > No. Bitcoin should work if miners are merely individually rational, i.e. they try to maximize their pay-offs without colluding with others. I guess word "honest" might have different meanings, that can be a source of confusing. 1. Honest -- not trying to destroy bitcoin 2. Honest -- following rules which are not required by the protocol