Author: Luke Dashjr 2019-07-27 19:19:49
Published on: 2019-07-27T19:19:49+00:00
On Tuesday 23 July 2019 Andreas Schildbach via bitcoin-dev wrote about a discussion on the BIP158 compact block filter, which was implemented in Bitcoin Core 0.19. The discussion revolved around three issues with the filter that were raised by Andrew Chow. One of the issues was related to address re-use and how the server decides on the filter and false positive rate. Andreas stated that this encourages address re-use because wallets with many addresses will have a hardcoded filter that will be too blurry, resulting in each block being matched. This would force wallets to wrap their key chains back to the beginning. However, Luke clarified that wallets do not need to match every single address they've used, only outstanding addresses that haven't been paid.The BIP158 compact block filter is a new feature added to Bitcoin Core 0.19. BIP158 allows clients to download a small filter from a Bitcoin node instead of downloading the entire blockchain. This improves the client's performance and reduces bandwidth usage. However, there are concerns with the filter's implementation. One concern is that it may encourage address re-use because the server decides on the filter and the false positive rate. If the filter is too blurry, then every block will be matched, forcing wallets to wrap their key chains back to the beginning. Luke's response provides clarity on this issue by stating that wallets do not need to match every single address they've used, only outstanding addresses that haven't been paid. This means that wallets can still use multiple addresses without facing the issue of having to wrap their key chains back to the beginning. It is important for developers and users to understand the implications of the BIP158 compact block filter and its potential impact on address re-use.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T20:14:25.505726+00:00