Author: Timo Hanke 2013-02-11 19:12:59
Published on: 2013-02-11T19:12:59+00:00
In a discussion on the Bitcoin development mailing list, Timo Hanke proposed to establish an identity for a payment protocol using a new namespace rather than tying names to data like Namecoin does. The technical difference between the two is not significant; it is the different use that can result in different security demands. Hanke suggests that DNS has a lower demand than payment ids have, and therefore, DNS data can be in a chain with a hashrate lower than Bitcoin's hashrate. Payment ids meant for Bitcoin, on the other hand, must be in a chain with equal hashrate. Hanke also discusses merging the new chain with Bitcoin's blockchain. However, he questions whether this would still be considered an alt-chain or a more efficient version of what he proposed.Peter Todd, another developer on the mailing list, suggested that creating a new system adds to the confusion for users who cannot memorize unique numbers and prefer non-unique names. Todd recommends working on Namecoin to make it more usable while adding some PKI to it using the same domain names. However, Hanke argues that Namecoin is unsuitable for his purpose and proposes using a payment base address, which he sees as a more universal identifier than a domain name. Additionally, Hanke explains the pay-to-contract principle, which means authenticated communication is not necessary when paying, so funds are never lost even if ordered from a wrong website.The developers also discuss where to store alt-chain block header hashes. Hanke initially thought of putting them in the UTXO to enable a future dedicated "hardware wallet" to validate against it. However, Todd points out that storing all the data in the UTXO would mean users need to have the entire blockchain available, which is not desirable. Ultimately, they agree that storing the alt-chain block header hashes outside the UTXO would be better.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T09:54:55.327555+00:00