Published on: 2012-01-30T10:57:54+00:00
In January 2012, Dr. Andy Parkins proposed the idea of adding more information to a Bitcoin address by cannibalizing its checksum. This proposal aims to prevent users from mistaking two different addresses and creating non-redeemable transactions. The base58 encoding used for Bitcoin addresses has spare capacity, as the longest address is converted into 34 symbols. However, there are still unused bits available that can be added without changing the number of symbols in the address.While this proposal is an idea, it may not be feasible or beneficial. The author of the message is addressing Bitcoiners and discussing various BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) suggestions for enabling multisignature transactions. However, they express frustration that the discussion is happening in multiple forums and IRC channels.The author presents some issues with BIP-16, specifically lines 265-269 in the reference implementation. They argue that this implementation breaks the purpose of the network ID by tying additional information into an address as a hack. In their previous argument for BIP-12 implementation, they expressed that this notification on an address level is not necessary and should not be introduced.Instead, the author suggests cannibalizing more information from the checksum if additional information is needed in a Bitcoin address. Currently, the checksum is four bytes, but it could be reduced to two or three bytes without affecting the current meaning of the network ID. This approach would achieve the same goal of preventing mistaken addresses and non-redeemable transactions.Although the author sees BIP-17 as a step forward, they agree with Gavin's note on one of the forums that it behaves differently in input and output scripts, indicating that further work is needed.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T02:54:58.059374+00:00