I think it does make the attack worse compared to existing fee estimation algorithms deployed on Bitcoin. Worked example in attached screenshot.pic.twitter.com/2koqKCN7Tz
You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more
I would argue that it’s easier to manipulate these centralized fee estimation services than to manipulate min feerate consistently over X blocks- where X is a large number :-)
Btw, there is no reason SPV fee estimation can’t get smarter. “Median over X blocks” is just the naive algorithm. Charlie already mentioned another one like having a fallback.
If you want to get fancy, you can do anomaly detection / cluster analysis over a large distribution of min feerates. Given enough blocks, this kind of analysis should produce a fee estimate not too far off from a full node’s estimate.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.