Bitcoin Core v29 has simply been launched, signaling the decision of a debate throughout the Bitcoin neighborhood that stretches all the best way again to the times when Satoshi Nakamoto was nonetheless actively discussing new concepts on Bitcointalk. The announcement arrived with an announcement within the launch notes explaining that, beginning with v28.0, the “-mempoolfullrbf” startup choice had defaulted to 1 and that, with widespread adoption of the follow, the choice was now eliminated fully.
The official notes learn: “Beginning with v28.0, the -mempoolfullrbf startup choice was set to default to 1. With widespread adoption of this coverage, customers now not profit from disabling it, so the choice has been eliminated, making full replace-by-fee the usual habits. (#30592)”
In response to this milestone, longtime Bitcoin developer Peter Todd posted through X, “The battle for Full-RBF is lastly over.” He was quickly requested by a person how lengthy the wrestle had lasted, and Todd replied, “Over a decade… 2013 IIRC. Even longer when you depend it from when Satoshi first talked about RBF in Dec 2010.”
Bitcoin Core v29 Declares Full-RBF The New Commonplace
Full Change-by-Price (Full-RBF) is a coverage that permits any unconfirmed transaction sitting within the mempool to get replaced by one other transaction that pays a better price, no matter whether or not the preliminary transaction signaled replaceability. This coverage builds on earlier discussions relationship again to December 2010, when Satoshi Nakamoto briefly floated the thought of permitting transaction substitute as a method to forestall community congestion and handle caught transactions. A number of years later, in 2013, Peter Todd started advocating extra forcefully for RBF as a treatment to the frequent person criticism that low-fee transactions might stay unconfirmed for hours or days if the community was overloaded.
The controversy that developed round Change-by-Price, and later Full-RBF, grew to become a flashpoint for broader questions on Bitcoin’s objective, safety, and on a regular basis usability. On one aspect have been those that noticed transaction substitute as an inevitable and helpful evolution of Bitcoin’s transaction-processing logic. They argued that it aligns nicely with Bitcoin’s price market incentives—miners naturally select higher-fee transactions—and that it gives better reliability for customers by permitting them to “bump” a transaction price after realizing their preliminary price is perhaps too low.
The counterargument got here principally from retailers and providers that relied on so-called zero-confirmation transactions, usually used for small funds comparable to shopping for a espresso or making fast point-of-sale purchases. Opponents of Full-RBF argued that enabling any unconfirmed transaction to get replaced would make zero-confirmation funds too dangerous, as malicious actors might double-spend by broadcasting a conflicting transaction with a better price.
This problem of zero-confirmation funds—generally referred to as 0-conf—was notably divisive. Some retailers thought-about 0-conf ok for low-value transactions as a result of the incentives to cheat have been minimal. Nonetheless, builders in favor of RBF argued that 0-conf was by no means a sound safety assumption within the first place, as a result of double-spends have been theoretically potential regardless.
The introduction of opt-in RBF in 2016 (through BIP125 and Bitcoin Core 0.12.0) formalized this debate: transactions might embody a flag signaling their willingness to get replaced, however miners and nodes might nonetheless select whether or not to honor the substitute. Bitcoin Core has steadily moved towards broader RBF use within the years since, culminating with v29 in April 2025, which absolutely adopts the coverage network-wide by default.
The controversy additionally spilled over into different Bitcoin forks and communities. Bitcoin Money, which emerged in 2017 with a give attention to bigger block sizes and low charges, largely rejected RBF in favor of preserving zero-confirmation options. Proponents of Bitcoin Money usually noticed Full-RBF as a step within the route of turning Bitcoin right into a strictly “retailer of worth” system, quite than a fee community for on a regular basis transactions. Bitcoin Core builders, for his or her half, tended to argue that Bitcoin’s long-term scaling relied on second-layer options, such because the Lightning Community, the place near-instant transactions are potential with out counting on unconfirmed on-chain funds.
Through the years, miners typically leaned towards insurance policies that maximize charges and community effectivity, although some have been initially hesitant to undertake Full-RBF if it threatened to fracture the community into competing mempool insurance policies. Retailers, fee processors, and Bitcoin ATM operators that favored zero-confirmation transactions resisted Full-RBF for apparent causes: it undermined the trustworthiness of unconfirmed funds. But the momentum towards broader adoption of RBF by no means ceased, supported by the argument that it displays the financial actuality of how miners and customers work together with the price market.
Now, with Bitcoin Core v29, the ultimate step has been taken: Full-RBF is the usual habits, with no choice to disable it. That shift closes a decade-plus chapter of argument and technical back-and-forth, one which Peter Todd alludes to when he says it goes again “even longer when you depend it from when Satoshi first talked about RBF in Dec 2010.”
At press time, BTC traded at $84,024.
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