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Anytime a transaction has a timestamp attached to it, and there are signed but not submitted transactions at play, shouldn't the holder of the non-submitted tx have to take into account the confirmations w.r.t. the expiration time?

Namely in example 7 of this wiki page on contracts I would think that if the AP waits until nearly midnight (almost when the tx expires) then there is a possibility of a double spend and the AP may not get paid. That means the AP would have to submit the tx 6 confirmations early... almost one hour.

  • Is this a correct understanding of locktime in relation to double spend attacks?

  • How should this be handled when the network is rapidly increasing in block generation (and difficulty hasn't been adjusted)? This is happening now with the GPU-> ASIC conversion

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The nLockTime is the earliest time that a miner can include that transaction in a block. It does not mean the exact time that both parties can assume final settlement has occurred.

You are correct to conclude that there is the potential for another transaction (with nLockTime = 0) to be broadcast and be in competition at the same time as the original nLockTime > 0) transaction.

But it wouldn't necessarily be a double spend, as the transaction seen later with the nLockTime = 0 would have had to have been signed by both parties.

If a "double spend" scenario occurs, it wouldn't be a surprise to either party.

The situation can occur where the two parties believe the nLockTime = 0 transaction will be the one confirmed and for whatever reason it doesn't get confirmed fast enough. Instead then at the original transaction's nLockTime (roughly, as there is a couple hour leeway available to the miner as far as timestamp goes) that transaction confirms and thus the transaction submitted later (where nLockTime = 0) will never confirm.

So the normal confirmation level threshold (e.g., six confirmations) still applies to these transactions as far as final settlement goes.

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    That is a good explanation of how the trailing time of the transaction would go. I assume the transaction start would have to wait 6 confirmations and subject to all normal race conditions in this case.
    – makerofthings7
    Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 21:43

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