Author: Adam Back 2014-01-15 23:09:01
Published on: 2014-01-15T23:09:01+00:00
The concept of stealth addresses is discussed in this email thread among Bitcoin developers. The term "unlinkable public address" is suggested as a replacement for the term "stealth address". The discussion revolves around how to make transactions look like normal bitcoin payments to the outside observer, which is important for fungibility reasons. One solution proposed is using an unlinkable static address, but this raises issues with SPV nodes not being able to directly find payments. A workaround is suggested involving a second address and DH calculation per transaction, but it is expensive for full nodes. For full-node use, unlinkable static addresses have nice properties and could help solve the problem of educating users and wallet authors about address reuse. Additionally, the use of static addresses could help prevent paying the wrong person by allowing users to verify that they are paying an address owned by the service. There is some debate over what to call these addresses, with "static address" being suggested as the most appropriate name. Payment protocol is also mentioned as a way to certify addresses, but some argue that address-level TOFU/static principal verification is simpler and more understandable for hardware wallets. Overall, while there remain some open problems with SPV uses, the idea of unlinkable static addresses is seen as an interesting possibility for full-node uses.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T00:09:50.662110+00:00