For Merchants: Double Spend and Fork insurance

[stslimited]

I've been toying with the idea of double spend and fork insurance

The big fork in march 2013 caused some people to have to disregard transactions

A lot of people don't accept 0 confirmation transactions because they could be reversed

If there were assurances that the merchant or counterparty would be reimbursed if these things happened, then bitcoin would be a more viable means of commerce for more people now. Gambling websites accept 0 confirmation transactions and it is amazingly quick.






Would a monthly premium and deductible model work with bitcoin merchants WHILE keeping transaction fees down from the merchant to the consumer?

I wouldn't want to introduce redundancies that would make bitcoin transactions costly just like credit card transactions, due to merchants paying too high costs for the insurance

[1715321602]

1715321602

[monsterer]

Yes it would work (and is greatly needed) as long as you have enough customer confidence in your service.

Zero confirmation transactions are fast enough for POS use and would really help adoption if they were secure enough for merchants to trust.

Cheers, Paul.

[moderate]

A lot of people don't accept 0 confirmation transactions because they could be reversed

There is no such reversal thing in bitcoin.

If there were assurances that the merchant or counterparty would be reimbursed if these things happened, then bitcoin would be a more viable means of commerce for more people now.

You're talking about it like if it is something special, it is isn't. Attempting double spend is a very trivial thing, you have no idea on what you are getting into. If you provide insurance for this, you will go broke in the first hour of operation. The only reason the gambling sites can accept them is because they will only allow you to withdraw IF your earlier deposit confirmed, so double spending does nothing. Obviously, if the site is broken it might allow withdrawing without proper checking, and there is no way you can insurance against that.