Re:Bitcoin transaction malleability: looking at the bytes
by VMG on Thursday February 13, 2014 @02:09PM
(#7233481)
Many implementation details can be hidden by the user interface. A wallet might keeps a set of addresses with small balances and ones with larger balances.
I don't think book flights and hotel reservations would require you to wait until previous transactions clear, these kinds of businesses always have the option to cancel your booking if they notice a double-spend on your side.
Edit: in general, businesses that receive your payments days in advance of delivering the product, Bitcoin is a better alternative than Credit Cards which can have chargebacks weeks after or charge a high fee
Re:Bitcoin transaction malleability: looking at the bytes
by atweiden on Thursday February 13, 2014 @04:34PM
(#7234545)
You can avoid the issue by not sending a large quantity of BTC all at once to a single address. For example, after buying from Coinbase, fan out your BTC in small increments to many addresses.
In Electrum, you can right-click on a receiving address with 0.1 coins in it, and choose to spend coins only from that address ("Send from").
Same principle as not carrying around a wallet full of $1000 bills.
Also, if I understood patio11s first post correctly, that large-purchase wallet would still need an hour after each purchase to clear properly [1]. Now, I don't run around and buy a couple of cars one after the other from different provides but it quite often happens that I need to book flights, hotel accommodations and rental cars for a business trip and I can't wait an hour after each step to go forward to the next one. More wallets here? Am I missing something?
[1] The ideal case seems to be to wait until a transaction is in the blockchain before sending the next one from the same wallet, but that could in theory take even longer.