Published on: 2012-12-03T20:44:40+00:00
In a conversation on December 3rd, 2012, Amir Taaki raised the topic of serializing points using a compressed format before hashing. Pieter Wuille responded by stating that there is no longer a need to encourage uncompressed public keys in the network as they take up more space in the blockchain without providing any additional value. He suggested that software can continue to support uncompressed keys for compatibility purposes, but it makes sense for a new standard to standardize on compressed keys. Wuille also emphasized that software should use the compressed encoding within the derivation scheme itself as there is no reason to use a different encoding. He explained that the encoding involves using 0x02 or 0x03 (depending on the parity of Y) followed by the 32-byte encoding of X. While decoding compressed public keys is slightly more complex, it is only necessary when importing an extended public key for watch-only wallets.In an email exchange between Pieter Wuille and Amir Taaki on December 3, 2012, the discussion revolved around hashed point serialization. The focus was on the compressed format used prior to the hash function, which one party found confusing. It was noted that secp256k1 is a prime field, where X has an octet string of 32 bytes (using q = curve.order) following step 2.2.1. The original email from Taaki was sent to bitcoin-development at lists.sourceforge.net and suggested labeling accounts instead of numbering them in BIP 32 HD wallets. Wuille responded by explaining that assigning incrementing numbers to accounts allows for detecting new accounts during disaster recovery. While he acknowledged the suggestion, he stated that allowing "non-standard derivations" using arbitrary strings could be added if recoverability is not a concern.In their 2012 email correspondence, Pieter Wuille, a Bitcoin Core developer, and Amir Taaki discussed the idea of allowing users to input labels instead of numbers for categorizing accounts in wallets. Taaki argued that using labels would be more practical and intuitive, while still allowing for incrementing numbers if desired. Wuille explained that the current system assigns numbers to accounts for disaster recovery purposes and detecting new accounts. He suggested the addition of "non-standard derivations" using arbitrary strings as long as it does not compromise recoverability.Overall, the suggestion is to modify the existing system to allow for the input of general category names instead of numbers when categorizing accounts. The argument is that using labels is more user-friendly while still accommodating the use of incrementing numbers if needed.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T04:20:44.419452+00:00