The function aims to correct possible errors when making a transaction.
The Electrum wallet incorporated a button to cancel unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions with RBF, a method that facilitates the replacement of a transaction by increasing the user’s commission. The update comes weeks after the wallet suffered a cyber-attack that has allowed the theft of 1,980 BTC through phishing since 2018.
The new version 4.0.4 of Electrum is available from October 15 on the wallet download site. The new feature makes it possible to cancel a Bitcoin transaction before it is confirmed, increasing the commission through the RBF (commission replacement) method to generate a “double-spend”.
“The Qt / kivy GUI cancels an unconfirmed RBF tx by spending twice its inputs on the same [transaction],” as read in the Electrum release notes on GitHub.
For the cancellation to be effective through the button incorporated into the wallet, the user must have enough balance, since the cancellation is executed by taking advantage of a Bitcoin property that prevents the same transaction from being confirmed twice.
This function corrects errors in sending bitcoins that are detected before the first confirmation occurs on the network. The transaction is canceled, but the highest commission corresponding to the RBF is paid.
Transaction replacement has been controversial since Satoshi Nakamoto implemented and deactivated it in 2010. The reason is that replacing a 0 commit transaction can be risky, especially in a world where merchants depend on these types of transactions (in theory faster because there is no need to wait for anything from the network).
The reason is that there is the latent possibility that a transaction will be replaced immediately after acquiring a service or a product; therefore, one of the parties involved in the transaction can be deceived before its transaction is irreversible.
Bitcoin Core developers such as Peter Todd and Jonas Schnelli have explained these risks over the years. They have also stated the need for wallets that implement these techniques for users to safely complete and/or cancel transactions.
RBF is commonly used to unlock transactions that have been stalled awaiting confirmation. For example, as a consequence of having made the transaction with a lower commission than the average at a certain time.
For these cases, CriptoNoticias made a short guide on how to unlock Bitcoin transactions.
Electrum bitcoin wallet improvements
One of the most recent updates to Electrum allows the wallet to be integrated into a full Bitcoin node, as an alternative to the servers of the platform itself.
The full nodes of Bitcoin can transmit information to each other to know the immediate state of the network. This provides greater security on transactions because the user does not need confirmation from a third party or share private information about a certain operation.
Starting in June, Electrum began testing features that allow operating payment channels on the Bitcoin Lightning network. This long-awaited update as the one that allows canceling unconfirmed transactions, includes for the moment the possibility of executing payments through individual channels, as it does not yet incorporate the function for payments through multiple channels.
Recent vulnerabilities in Bitcoin wallets
Recent Electrum updates also focused on fixing vulnerabilities. Since 2018, hackers took advantage of a certain weakness in the system to steal bitcoins from users who were deceived with false updates.
As CriptoNoticias reported, the same design error in the Ledger and Trezor wallets was also detected in August. According to researcher Monokh, the vulnerability facilitated the theft of bitcoin by executing a deceptive transaction with bitcoin cash, litecoin, or some currency from the Bitcoin testnet.
By: Jenson Nuñez.
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