Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] A suggestion for reducing the size of the UTXO database

From: Jim Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 May 2015 14:52:26 -0500

On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Raystonn <[email-masked]> wrote:

> How about this as a happy medium default policy: Rather than select UTXOs
>> based solely on age and limiting the size of the transaction, we select as
>> many UTXOs as possible from as few addresses as possible, prioritizing
>> which addresses to use based on the number of UTXOs it contains (more being
>> preferable) and how old those UTXOs are (in order to reduce the fee)?
>
> If selecting older UTXOs gives higher priority for a lesser (or at least
> not greater) fee, that is an incentive for a rational user to use the older
> UTXOs.  Such policy needs to be defended or removed.  It doesn't support
> privacy or a reduction in UTXOs.
>
Before starting this thread, I had completely forgotten that age was even a
factor in determining which UTXOs to use. Frankly, I can't think of any
reason why miners care how old a particular UTXO is when determining what
fees to charge. I'm sure there is one, I just don't know what it is. I just
tossed it in there as homage to Andreas who pointed out to me that it was
still part of the selection criteria.