Author: Andrew Chow 2021-08-31 19:46:55
Published on: 2021-08-31T19:46:55+00:00
In an email to Peter D. Gray via bitcoin-dev, Andrew Chow comments on the possibility of registering mime types for Bitcoin and offers insight into his prior attempt in 2019 to register "application/bitcoin-psbt", which was not accepted. He notes that there are only a few accepted top-level types, so Bitcoin would have to use "application" as the top level. However, the Standards tree has requirements that Bitcoin does not meet, as it must be associated with an IETF specification or registered by a recognized standards-related organization. While Bitcoin's closest thing to a standards organization is the BIPs process, it is not recognized by IANA. Therefore, to register the mimetypes as Standards tree types, an RFC would need to be written as an independent submission.An alternative would be to use the Vendor tree, but this would prefix the mimetype with "vnd." making it "application/vnd.bitcoin.psbt". However, Chow did not pursue this avenue as he did not think it was reasonable. Peter D. Gray proposes registering three MIME media types with the IANA in the same email thread. The proposed types are bitcoin/psbt, bitcoin/txn, and bitcoin/uri. The first type is for a BIP-174 file, while the second type is for a wire-ready fully-signed transaction in binary. The third type is for a payment address that can encode amount and comments in URL args. Gray also notes that the proposals would be useful for web servers and NFC (NDEF records), where a shorter length is critical. However, he is unsure if IANA will accept these proposals.
Updated on: 2023-05-21T03:31:07.746929+00:00