9 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
Seems like it is at odds with a fungible currency. I just listened to his presentation (not read the paper) but he made a reference to the fact that a certain set of users could (should) not accept payments from covenant contracts. IMO this invites classification of coins based on their convenance contract type, and (from what I understand) it also affects the irreversibility of payments. Again, just what I understood from his talk, post corrections if I am wrong.
Comment by BashCo at 09/10/2016 at 20:50 UTC
6 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Fungibility is a big concern for me, but I think there could be a place for covenants. Imagine if the Bitfinex hacker had only compromised the exchanges vault key, and the funds would not clear for 24 hours, which would give Bitfinex enough time to bust out their recovery key and undo the hack (assuming the recovery key was not also compromised).
Obviously transactions from vault addresses would need to be extremely clear that they are not confirmed until the recovery period expires. It's basically like RBF and 0-conf where wallets should alert the receiver, only in this case the vault owner defines how much time must pass before the transaction can be considered final. I'm sure there's room for abuse in such a scheme, but I think the benefits of thwarting potentially extraordinary theft are worth considering.