Author: Amir Taaki 2012-12-03 14:48:34
Published on: 2012-12-03T14:48:34+00:00
In an email exchange between Pieter Wuille and Amir Taaki dated December 3, 2012, the topic of hashed point serialization was discussed. The conversation revolved around the compressed format used before going into the hash function, which was deemed confusing by one party. It was observed that secp256k1 is a prime field, with X having an octet string of 32 bytes (using q = curve.order), thus following step 2.2.1. The email had originally been sent by Amir Taaki to bitcoin-development at lists.sourceforge.net, suggesting that accounts should be labeled instead of numbered in BIP 32 HD wallets. In response, Pieter Wuille noted that there was no way to iterate over all strings, and that incrementing numbers were assigned to detect new accounts that come into use, for instance during disaster recovery. However, he added that he would not mind adding the ability to do "non-standard derivations" using arbitrary strings if the recoverability property is not desired.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T09:28:11.336719+00:00