Author: Pavol Rusnak 2022-08-24 20:18:27
Published on: 2022-08-24T20:18:27+00:00
A proposal for a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) has been made to standardize the export and import of labels from a wallet. The proposed format is a simple two-column CSV file, with the reference to a transaction, address, input or output in the first column and the label in the second column. This would allow users to transfer their labels across different wallet applications and avoid lock-in to a particular application. The order in which these records appear is not defined, and the files exported should use the .csv file extension. The CSV file may also be compressed using the ZIP file format, using the .zip file extension, and encrypted using either AES-128 or AES-256 encryption. Ryan Havar suggested using JSON instead of CSV, citing issues such as the lack of strict escape rules and variations in implementation. He provided an example of the JSON format and argued that JSON was easier to parse and more extensible. However, it was pointed out that there was already a JSON standard described in SLIP-0015 that had been used for the past seven years, so there was no need to reinvent the wheel.The full text of the BIP can be found on GitHub, and feedback is appreciated. The proposal was made by Craig Raw, who noted that while transferring access to funds across wallets has been made simple through standards such as BIP39, wallet labels remain siloed and difficult to extract despite their value, particularly in a privacy context. The UTXO model used by Bitcoin makes labels valuable as they may indicate the source of funds, whether received externally or as a result of change from a prior transaction. Labels provide valuable guidance in avoiding undesirable leaks of private information, and have even become mandatory when spending in several Bitcoin wallets.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T23:59:50.002208+00:00