Author: Pieter Wuille 2013-07-23 10:27:35
Published on: 2013-07-23T10:27:35+00:00
In a discussion between Andreas Schildbach and Pieter Wuille, the issue of sweeping paper wallets was brought up. People often switch to centralized services for convenience in this regard rather than using decentralized solutions. The only way to avoid this is by making sure that the decentralized solution is convenient enough. However, relying on unauthenticated data means risking the loss of the benefits of decentralization. Address-indexed UXTOs were deemed sufficient for the use case, meaning that there would be no need to worry about script-indexed trees. The difference between the two is trivial compared to the effort needed to implement and maintain such authenticated trees by all full nodes. Restricting things at the network level to address-based indexes was also deemed ridiculous. While security issues could be mitigated by applying trust to the REST server (for example via SSL), this would mean relying on a third party to do the heavy indexing. This goes against the spirit of Bitcoin as a decentralized solution, so it would be best to search for alternatives and encourage infrastructure that doesn't require it.Paper wallets that include the necessary additional information are a potential solution, but they have inherent problems. For example, people won't be able to sweep existing paper wallets or top them up. There may also be cases where the "involuntary fee" leads to a loss of coins. On the other hand, the necessary information can fit into a QR code.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T17:07:36.691390+00:00