Are transaction fees a vulnerable attack vector? \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Are transaction fees a vulnerable attack vector?

730 sats \ 10 comments \ @BTCExecutor 21 Nov 2023 bitcoin

Could an attacker flood the mempool with ordinals or other bloated transactions to jack up transaction costs and make on-chain transactions too costly and unwieldy for most users?

Yes, this would be expensive, but a lot less expensive than a 51% attack for a motivated attacker seeking the most "bang for his buck."

Is layer bitcoin vulnerable to this a sort of DDOS attack?

I'm probably not understanding something, would appreciate learning more

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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @nerd2ninja 21 Nov 2023

Do you consider paying miners for valid transactions, not taking money from anyone, not double spending or anything like that, to be an attack?

$100 transaction fees are an expected norm of on-chain transactions. That's why there's so much L2 building going on.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BTCExecutor OP 22 Nov 2023

No problems with the role miners play.

I'm curious if a well-funded bad actor, say a nation-state, could flood the mempool with high-fee transactions to disrupt "normal" usage.

If I understand correctly. perhaps creating many many transaction of huge file sizes (videos, high res image files, etc.). With the ill-intent of slowing down (or making prohibitively expensive) the network for all other users.

Wondering what would prevent this from happening

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @megaptera 21 Nov 2023

I doubt that this is an attack. If you call it an attack it is definitely no DDOS attack. A DDOS attack floods a resource to disrupt the service it provides. If you flood the mempool with transactions everyone can perfeclty fine use bitcoin and the mempool. Of course you have to outbid the flooder on feerates which could be potentialy expensive. But there is no disruption of a service and therefore no DDOS.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BTCExecutor OP 22 Nov 2023

I don't believe the current fee rates are an attack. It just made me wonder if fees are a possible attack vector on the usability of the network.

I may have chosen DDOS as a poor wording, but to my layman eyes it still seems like a similar concept. Flood the mempool with intentionally bloated and expensive transactions with the ill-intent to disrupt actual users from transacting (unless willing to outbid).

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @DarthCoin 21 Nov 2023

https://i.postimg.cc/yNmVT4xg/darth-make-them-pay.png

Do you understand this meme?

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @BTCExecutor OP 22 Nov 2023

I think so.

I'm assuming the bad-actor is willing to pay to attack the usability of the network. And this could be cheaper than an attempted 51% attack (if I understand correctly).

5 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 22 Nov 2023

For more they want to "attack" (if you like to say it like that, but is not a real attack) they must pay more, until will be drained of money.

But the fun fact is that the network could adjust anytime, so for more they push, harder will be, and more expensive.

All those ordinal txs are actually valid bitcoin txs, that pay their fees, nothing wrong with that. Is wrong what they are doing with that crap. But from the Bitcoin stand point are valid txs and can't be named a DDoS attack or something like that.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @BTCExecutor OP 22 Nov 2023

Perhaps an "attack" with the lesser goal of (even just temporarily) making non-bitcoiners less confident in usability.

I guess a possible way for bad actors to try and slow adoption?

Appreciate the reply, just trying to think it through

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 22 Nov 2023

Let them try... Bitcoin is prepared for all kind of "attacks". Do you really think Bitcoin wasn't attacked until now? hahahaha Bitcoin is attacked every fucking day, from its inception.

And is still stand up and getting stronger with every attack more.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BTCExecutor OP 22 Nov 2023

🔥🔥🔥