Author: Anthony Towns 2023-02-01 01:13:49
Published on: 2023-02-01T01:13:49+00:00
In a recent email exchange on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, David A. Harding raised a question about the best practice for wallets when it comes to spending to the output indicated by any valid bech32m address. The response from aj was that it depends on whether the wallet is custodial or non-custodial. If it's a non-custodial wallet that may not be upgraded by the time witness v2 addresses are in use, then sending to such addresses now makes sense and is worth testing. However, if it's a custodial wallet, then there's a strong argument against allowing sending to such addresses until they're actually in use. The reason for this is two-fold: firstly, nobody will be running old software since the custodian can just force everyone to upgrade. Secondly, signing a transaction to send bitcoins held on behalf of someone else to an address that will get them stolen could be considered negligence, forcing the custodian to make the user whole again. Therefore, there's no point in testing a scenario that's likely years away for custodial wallets.On the other hand, for non-custodial wallets, it's worth testing as they might not be able to find compatible software in the future to move their private keys and have to resort to using the current software. However, in that case, they should be able to capture the transaction it generates before broadcasting it, and don't need to publish it on-chain. It's a different matter for libraries and non-wallet software like block explorers or alternate node implementations.
Updated on: 2023-05-22T23:25:19.681284+00:00