According to U.Today, legendary Bitcoin developer Peter Todd has announced that full replace-by-fee (full-RBF) is now the default setting in Bitcoin Core v28.0. The RBF feature allows users to replace unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions with new ones that offer higher fees, typically used for fee bumping, cancelation, or updating transactions. While BIP-125 permits disabling RBF, full-RBF ensures that transactions are always replaceable.
The introduction of full-RBF has been a topic of debate within the Bitcoin community for over a decade. Bitcoin is known for its conservative approach to implementing significant changes. Todd argues that the feature benefits miners by maximizing profits and reducing legal risks associated with unconfirmed double-spends. In terms of security, full-RBF mitigates the risk of double-spend attacks by slowing down transaction propagation.
Additionally, full-RBF enhances privacy by making it more difficult for blockchain analysis firms like Chainalysis to deanonymize transactions. Todd mentioned that the integration of full-RBF required extensive peering and marketing efforts. He noted that forking Bitcoin Core with full-RBF peering code and the creation of token protocols that inadvertently generated an auction market paying high fees to full-RBF miners were crucial steps in the process. Todd believes that the revenue opportunities provided by the feature would have likely gone unnoticed without these efforts.
