[Bitcoin-development] Payment protocol and reliable Payment messages

[Andreas Schildbach]

On 01/13/2014 06:56 PM, Pieter Wuille wrote:

> I want to avoid the case where a transaction confirms, but the
> associated payment is not delivered. If there is a reasonable chance
> that this case occurs in normal operation, it means the payment
> transmission cannot be relied upon.

I was thinking about this some more. Generally I think you have a point.
However, there is one case I'm worried about.

Imagine you get a good offer (payment request) from a merchant. You
would like to accept that offer, however the merchant has changed his
mind. If you don't broadcast the payment to the blockchain, you won't
have a chance to accept and legally bind the offer. The merchant will
silently discard your payment messages.

At some point, you will involve a judge. If you can present the payment
request and the payment from the block chain, you're in a much better
position than if you just present a request but no confirmed payment.

I think in some cases you might want to broadcast your txn to the P2P
network, even if the payment messages get lost. What do you think?