Author: Gregory Maxwell 2014-01-16 01:32:31
Published on: 2014-01-16T01:32:31+00:00
In an email conversation, Jeremy Spilman discusses the difficulty of choosing the number of bits to put in a prefix for Bitcoin transactions. He notes that 0 or 1 bits may be sufficient for a single user node, while a central service may require 4 or 5 bits to ensure scalability. However, the cost of each reusable address is only a small percentage of the full node cost, so computation should not be a major issue except for large centralized services. Spilman also emphasizes that regardless of the desired prefix length, the encoded prefix should always be of constant length in all reusable addresses. If a particular prefix is not desired, the sender can simply choose random data for the remaining space without publishing any additional distinguishing information.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T18:02:09.560245+00:00