Can Finney attacks only be made by miners?

Question

I read this article about double spending attacks. The article has a sentence that goes like this:

"Finney attacks can only be executed by miners, and are therefore fairly technical and obscure."

Before this sentence it explains that a double spend attack happens when someone creates two transactions with two different fee rates so one goes through faster, but if someone accepts the transaction with the lower fee rate, the double spent had happened. So, my question is, why does it claim that only miners can do this? Anyone can create two transactions with two different fee rates!

Answer 1

The answer is yes - a Finney attack can only be made by a miner, or by someone partnering with a miner.

What you're missing is that a Finney attack is a specific kind of attack. It is not interchangeable with "race attack" (which is a different kind) or "double-spend attack" (which is a broad umbrella term covering many kinds).

In the section you're thinking of, the first paragraph describes what it takes to do a race attack. The third paragraph explains what is a Finney attack.