Bitcoin's New Feature OP_Vault Can Help Protect Users From Scams and Theft

A new feature in Bitcoin's blockchain is emerging and has made many people satisfied with its utility. The name of this feature is OP_Vault and the intention is to implement this in the blockchain itself.

OP_Vault is a mechanism that like the name itself gives away works like a locked vault. The idea is to have a wallet with a main spending address that can be accessed always and a vault address that is locked. This vault would have to be setup by the user and consists in adding a timer to when a transaction will be executed.

In practical terms the user setups a vault with a timer, during the creation of this vault a private key different from the main wallet will be generated and should be kept by the user away from the main one. After a trasaction is performed in the vault address the user has to wait the time that was defined in the creation of the vault before the transaction is executed. If the user defined an one day wait time, the transaction will be only executed after one day, which means that if its a malicious transaction the user as time save the funds before they get stolen. The transaction will be broadcasted into the blockchain, after getting one confirmation the waiting period starts.

The question is how an user will save his Bitcoin after a malicious transaction has started. The answer is easy, the user has already setup an address for recovery that generated the vault private key, after a malicious trasaction starts, the user would be notified by the watchtower that a transaction is being made in his wallet, remember that the countdown has started, the user can access his vault insert the private key and divert the transaction to the recovery address controlled by the user when he first created the vault. All this has to be done before the countdown has run out or the transaction would be executed and the funds would be stolen.

The concept of a watchtower is very important here because it is the way the user has to be notified that a transaction has been started in his wallet.

This vault can be closed instantly by the owner of the vault private key by inserting the private key in the vault and chosing the option to close it. This would incur a transaction fee because it would make a transaction to the main address, but the vault would be closed immediately and the user would have access to the funds in the vault isntantly without having to wait for the countdown to end.

This is a feature that has not been talked about by a lot of people but its one that can help a lot of people not to lose its funds by the means of a scam.