Author: Gregory Maxwell 2012-12-05 03:23:37
Published on: 2012-12-05T03:23:37+00:00
In December 2012, Mike Koss proposed an alternative to the BIP32 proposal for a deterministic wallet system based on a hierarchical string representation. He named keys using a specific format: [hd1.75491111].store.x. In response, Pieter raised concerns that blindly iterating through strings is not realistically possible and could result in losing the backup recoverability property of a deterministic wallet. This means that if a backup is made prior to establishing a new string name, it must also have a reliable backup of the string as well. Furthermore, if the backup of strings is incomplete with the hierarchical string representation, some or all assigned coin may be lost forever. On the other hand, with the BIP32 scheme, backing up a map equating the hdwallet indexes to strings would allow for no loss of coins (only metadata) in the event of a catastrophic loss where only the original ultimate root is left. Additionally, Mike's extended hierarchy of multipliers raised concerns, whereas BIP32 uses a HMAC in its construction to obtain strongly unstructured points.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T16:25:22.073560+00:00