Bitcoin developers look to remove old fee signal that leaks wallet clues

Bitcoin developers want to remove explicit replace-by-fee (RBF) signaling from wallet software because full-RBF is now standard policy, making the old opt-in flag redundant. Keeping the legacy RBF signal creates unnecessary on-chain fingerprints that can reveal which wallet software was used.

The replace-by-fee feature originally let users signal that they might later replace a transaction with a higher fee to speed it up. Since the network now treats every transaction as replaceable by default, that explicit "replace later" signal has become a vestigial piece of code that leaves digital fingerprints.

Developers are proposing a code change to remove the signaling mechanism. "There is an intention in the bitcoin core wallet to remove the BIP 125 RBF signaling in transactions for which a PR is raised. The primary reason for its removal is because ever since full-RBF became a standard policy, this signaling has become redundant," a developer wrote on the mailing list.

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