[theswan]

Makes me wonder - would we ever get to a point where it's in Square/Stripe/Coinbase/et. al's interests to contribute mining power to help their own transactions along? Or is that pretty much taken care of by transaction fees?

[gojomo]

I suspect they'd just strike deals with existing mining specialists, if and when necessary, perhaps even via out-of-band (non-Bitcoin-transaction) exchanges of considerations.

[wmf]

There could be a problem with fees from a merchant's perspective because they are chosen by the sender and it's possible that someone could (accidentally or intentionally) pay with a transaction that never confirms. Merchant providers like BitPay/Coinbase/Stripe/Square might benefit from a way to pay fees on behalf of a transaction to ensure it gets confirmed.