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I genuinely believed we had reached the nadir concerning Bitcoin proponents fabricating outlandish and absurd justifications against Bitcoin advancements, solely to position themselves as virtuous outsiders battling internal corruption and ineptitude.
My assumption was misguided.
Allow me to clarify a few points. When utilizing Lightning channels, one must pre-determine the fee rate for a unilateral close transaction. Since the actual UTXO is a multisignature, both parties in the channel must pre-sign any transaction utilized for an unilateral closure. The entire security framework of the Lightning Network relies on these pre-signed transactions. Should you ever need to employ one, perhaps due to a non-cooperative counterparty, you cannot depend on them to re-sign at a higher fee rate if circumstances demand it.
This situation presented challenges during unilateral fee closures. If network fees were high and subsequently decreased after channel initiation, you would incur unnecessary expenses. Conversely, if fees were low and then increased, you could not ensure a timely closure of your channel. Replace-By-Fee (RBF) is not feasible because your counterparty needs to sign, and Child-Pays-For-Parent (CPFP) cannot be used since all your outputs are timelocked, rendering any spending transaction invalid until the initial transaction confirms and several blocks have passed.
Consequently, anchor outputs were introduced. These were specific outputs lacking timelocks, designed exclusively to be spent in a child transaction to increase the fee for a Lightning close transaction. However, this introduced additional capital inefficiency, necessitating the use of a non-trivial amount of satoshis to establish these outputs.
Now, enter ephemeral anchors, built upon the foundation of v3 transaction relay and package relay (which involves relaying transactions in the mempool as groups). The concept is to establish a zero-value output spendable with OP_TRUE (meaning anyone can spend it). Transactions with a zero fee rate that incorporate an ephemeral anchor will be relayed in the mempool, provided there is a subsequent child transaction spending the ephemeral anchor output with an appropriate fee rate.
This enables Lightning channels to sign unilateral closure transactions without any fees. Anyone needing to utilize them can simply spend the ephemeral anchor output to set the required fee rate at that moment. This significantly streamlines Lightning closure transactions and eliminates the capital inefficiencies associated with current anchor outputs. An additional advantage is that any party, not solely the channel owners (or other contract participants), can bump the fee of a transaction with an ephemeral anchor.
The ephemeral anchor does not even generate a zero-value UTXO in the UTXO set, as it is only relayed in conjunction with a transaction that immediately spends it within the same block.
So, why is this considered problematic or an attack? I have no understanding; it represents a remarkable simplification that virtually any second-layer protocol or contract built on Bitcoin would greatly benefit from. It introduces no UTXO set bloat, as the outputs utilized are, by definition, ephemeral. They are not permanently created.
The sole arguments presented are “spam!” or “Core developers are eliminating the dust limit!” (A restriction on the minimum value transaction outputs must possess to be relayed, and they are not removing it for anything other than ephemeral anchors, which must be spent immediately by a child transaction to be relayed).
I believe we have reached a juncture where we must seriously contemplate when to disregard criticisms or complaints concerning technical matters within this domain. Or when legitimate critiques devolve into baseless and illogical crusades centered on personalities rather than reasoned argumentation. This backlash against ephemeral anchors unequivocally falls into the latter category.
All justifiable criticism should be embraced within an open-source protocol like Bitcoin, but it is time to cease indulging irrational tribalism devoid of logical foundation as if it were on par with legitimate critique. It is not; it is merely a waste of resources and a Denial of Service attack against the process of enhancing Bitcoin.
This article represents a Take. The views expressed are exclusively those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Original article : bitcoinmagazine.com