Author: Ross Nicoll 2015-08-09 16:23:28
Published on: 2015-08-09T16:23:28+00:00
In this context, the author expresses caution in using human-meaningful identifiers due to potential name collisions. Examples of complicated names that could pose issues include BitcoinDark and Litedoge. The author suggests that using the genesis hash as a network ID could be a viable alternative, even though it is long at 64 bytes. The ability to differentiate between test networks is also noted as useful. The author plans to wait for more feedback before raising a BIP for using the genesis hash as an alternative to short names. In response to this, Mike Hearn notes that the reason BIP 70 does not consider this is because alt coins can vary in arbitrary ways from Bitcoin, making it difficult to determine if things in BIP70 will work for other coins. If an alt coin is similar enough to BIP70 that it can be reused "as is," then a new network string for the alt could be defined. Another option suggested by Hearn is to use the genesis hash as the network name, although this may involve lookups to determine what the request is for. Overall, Hearn does not seem to have strong feelings one way or the other.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T18:58:48.232453+00:00