Author: Robert Spigler 2021-03-14 20:46:14
Published on: 2021-03-14T20:46:14+00:00
The current standards for deterministic wallets have many issues, including the mixing of keys and scripts in the same layer. BIP44/49/84 specifies a path that includes per-script derivations, but these are made redundant with descriptors. The proposal is to create extended private/public keys independent of the script or signature type. In multisignature wallets, each cosigner stores their xprv and the wallet descriptor for backup. For single signature wallets, only one signature is needed. It is not accurate to say that wallets need "just the seed words" for recovery as they also need all public keys and derivation paths. Descriptors are a cleaner way to handle wallet creation and backup by separating the two layers and getting rid of redundant information. The proposal is making a tradeoff between discoverable and non-discoverable scripts, which can be resolved by backing up both seed words and output script descriptors.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T19:26:32.457572+00:00