Author: Gregory Maxwell 2019-03-06 03:02:51
Published on: 2019-03-06T03:02:51+00:00
A discussion on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list regarding the maximum length of addresses for the Bitcoin protocol has raised questions about the suitability of 32-byte addresses for the I2P network. There are two formats in use, and it is suggested that the maximum address length should be defined per address type. The spec could potentially include a maximum size for the message so that an add message should never be over a certain size, regardless of the included address size.Additionally, there was a debate on whether clients should store and gossip address formats they do not know about. It was suggested that clients should be discouraged from gossiping types they don't understand at all, but not forbidden from doing so. It was also noted that gossiping addresses outside a certain overlay network may not make sense, particularly for networks that have no exit nodes as there is no overlap with the globally routed internet at all. Clients should therefore be cautious when gossiping unknown address types to prevent file transfer over invalid address types.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T19:47:56.528039+00:00