n 2016, developers Malte Moser, Itai Eyal and Emin Kyung Sirer proposed the idea of "safes" to ensure the safety of Bitcoins.
The idea is for Bitcoin holders using it as a means of accumulation to be able to place their assets in a special wallet that will allow them to spend the cryptocurrency, but not immediately. The wallet owner will be able to set the time of deferral, after which the transfer will take place. Thus, if the wallet is accessed from the outside, it will be able to reverse the transaction.
The idea was not implemented, because it required the implementation of a fork code base protocol. This Wednesday, Bitcoin Core developer Brian Bishop presented a plan to implement the described functionality without changing the existing code, writes CoinDesk.
"Safes are of particular interest as a mechanism to protect the cold storage of Bitcoin because they introduce a publicly available delay so that the "watchdog" can warn the user that someone may be trying to steal his coins," Bishop writes.
According to the developer's suggestion, when the "unlock period" starts, the user will be able to decide whether or not to react. If he initiated the transaction himself, he will simply ignore the warning. Otherwise, he will be able to send another transaction with preset parameters to return the bitcoins to his wallet.
"There are many users and exchanges who cannot protect their keys. We are watching the theft. The ability to cancel a transaction, even in such limited circumstances, can be quite valuable," he explained. - I do not want to say that this is a solution to the theft problem. Such a statement would be too loud, but this tool will be an important common set.
According to Bishop, his proposal does not require forks, because it is based on the temporary blocking function, which is already present in the Bitcoin code. Now he intends to listen to his colleagues' opinions and then he can start writing and testing the program.