# Mempool Replacements

## Current Replace-by-Fee Policy

A transaction conflicts with an in-mempool transaction ("directly conflicting transaction") if they
spend one or more of the same inputs. A transaction may conflict with multiple in-mempool
transactions.

A transaction ("replacement transaction") may replace its directly conflicting transactions and
their in-mempool descendants (together, "original transactions") if, in addition to passing all
other consensus and policy rules, each of the following conditions are met:

1. If `-mempoolfullrbf=0` (the value is 1 by default), the directly conflicting transactions all signal replaceability explicitly. A transaction is
   signaling BIP125 replaceability if any of its inputs have an nSequence number less than (0xffffffff - 1).
   A transaction also signals replaceability if its version field is set to 3.

   *Rationale*: See [BIP125
   explanation](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0125.mediawiki#motivation).

2. The replacement transaction only include an unconfirmed input if that input was included in
   one of the directly conflicting transactions. An unconfirmed input spends an output from a
   currently-unconfirmed transaction.

   *Rationale*: When RBF was originally implemented, the mempool did not keep track of
   ancestor feerates yet. This rule was suggested as a temporary restriction.

3. The replacement transaction pays an absolute fee of at least the sum paid by the original
   transactions.

   *Rationale*: Only requiring the replacement transaction to have a higher feerate could allow an
   attacker to bypass node minimum relay feerate requirements and cause the network to repeatedly
   relay slightly smaller replacement transactions without adding any more fees. Additionally, if
   any of the original transactions would be included in the next block assembled by an economically
   rational miner, a replacement policy allowing the replacement transaction to decrease the absolute
   fees in the next block would be incentive-incompatible.

4. The additional fees (difference between absolute fee paid by the replacement transaction and the
   sum paid by the original transactions) pays for the replacement transaction's bandwidth at or
   above the rate set by the node's incremental relay feerate. For example, if the incremental relay
   feerate is 1 satoshi/vB and the replacement transaction is 500 virtual bytes total, then the
   replacement pays a fee at least 500 satoshis higher than the sum of the original transactions.

   *Rationale*: Try to prevent DoS attacks where an attacker causes the network to repeatedly relay
   transactions each paying a tiny additional amount in fees, e.g. just 1 satoshi.

5. The number of original transactions does not exceed 100. More precisely, the sum of all
   directly conflicting transactions' descendant counts (number of transactions inclusive of itself
   and its descendants) must not exceed 100; it is possible that this overestimates the true number
   of original transactions.

   *Rationale*: Try to prevent DoS attacks where an attacker is able to easily occupy and flush out
   significant portions of the node's mempool using replacements with multiple directly conflicting
   transactions, each with large descendant sets.

6. The replacement transaction's feerate is greater than the feerates of all directly conflicting
   transactions.

   *Rationale*: This rule was originally intended to ensure that the replacement transaction is
   preferable for block-inclusion, compared to what would be removed from the mempool. This rule
   predates ancestor feerate-based transaction selection.

This set of rules is similar but distinct from BIP125.

## History

* Opt-in full replace-by-fee (without inherited signaling) honoured in mempool and mining as of
  **v0.12.0** ([PR 6871](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6871)).

* [BIP125](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0125.mediawiki) defined based on
  Bitcoin Core implementation.

* The incremental relay feerate used to calculate the required additional fees is distinct from
  `-minrelaytxfee` and configurable using `-incrementalrelayfee`
  ([PR #9380](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/9380)).

* RBF enabled by default in the wallet GUI as of **v0.18.1** ([PR
  #11605](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/11605)).

* Full replace-by-fee enabled as a configurable mempool policy as of **v24.0** ([PR
  #25353](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/25353)).

* Full replace-by-fee is the default policy as of **v28.0** ([PR #30493](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/30493)).