Author: Andreas Schildbach 2019-07-23 14:47:18
Published on: 2019-07-23T14:47:18+00:00
The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 157/158 is not a viable alternative to BIP 37 for several reasons. Firstly, it causes too much traffic for mobile and fixed-line users in less developed parts of the world. Secondly, it only filters blocks and does not address unconfirmed transactions. Thirdly, it enforces or encourages address re-use. Finally, the filters are not yet committed to the blockchain, so we would have to trust a server to provide correct filters.Bitcoin Wallet, Breadwallet, and BISQ, along with many smaller wallets, do not support BIP 37. While the DNS seed infrastructure could direct wallets to supporting nodes, it currently does not. However, we cannot expect nodes to provide disk/CPU intensive services for free to clients not contributing back to the network. It is worth noting that BIP 37 could be made simpler, more future-proof, and more private by simply matching output scripts.Despite claims that BIP 37 is a conceptual mistake with little interest in further extensions, it has been successfully used by wallets like Bitcoin Wallet and Breadwallet that also support SegWit. A proposed attack on BIP 37 using bloom filters has not been described in detail. Potential CPU DoS attacks can be defended against by disconnecting and blacklisting the IP for some time.Coinbase recently announced its 30 millionth wallet, which some believe is due to the public realizing around December 2017 that Bitcoin fails to scale. Despite this trend, BIP 37 is a successful scaling technology that, if supported and improved, could help hold against the bitbanks trend.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T20:13:20.512058+00:00