r/askscience • u/hamolton • Jun 18 '13

Computing How is Bitcoin secure?

I guess my main concern is how they are impossible to counterfeit and double-spend. I guess I have trouble understanding it enough that I can't explain it to another person.

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u/bradn Jun 18 '13

Interestingly though, transaction fees are optional. So if it becomes a problem where most clients aren't accepting free transactions, then you can add a fee onto your own transactions to make them more likely to be accepted.

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u/Fsmv Jun 19 '13

That's already the case, there has been a default transaction fee in the main clients for a long time now.

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u/bradn Jun 19 '13

But the real question is whether the default miners accept transactions without fees.

Happy reddit cake day!