Over the past few weeks, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community has been discussing the subject of merchants accepting zero confirmation BCH transactions. Lots of BCH merchants have been accepting zero confirms lately as well, making the discussion topical again as it was a few years ago.

Zero Confirmation Transactions and the Bitcoin Snack Machine

Zero confirmation transactions are transactions that are broadcast to the network but have not been etched into the blockchain. People like the idea of zero confirm acceptance because the method makes fast payments desirable for both the merchant and customer. However, the topic is also controversial at times because some individuals think the concept can be risky due to double spends and because there have been a few occasions of double spends within both the Bitcoin Core (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) networks. Even with these statistics, individuals think the use of zero confirmation transactions is key to broader cryptocurrency acceptance and others have proposed solutions to the zero confirmation doubles spending.

In a discussion called the "Bitcoin Snack Machine" on the website Bitcointalk.org, Satoshi Nakamoto talked about zero confirmation acceptance back in July 2010.

"I believe it'll be possible for a payment processing company to provide as a service the rapid distribution of transactions with good-enough checking in something like 10 seconds or less," Nakamoto details. "The network nodes only accept the first version of a transaction they receive to incorporate into the block they're trying to generate."