Published on: 2017-09-06T07:19:31+00:00
In a discussion on the bitcoin-dev mailing list, the topic of recovering a wallet using seed words was brought up. It was noted that there is no distinction between seed words for segwit and non-segwit wallets, leading to the discovery of both m/44' and m/49' accounts. However, constantly monitoring both accounts for transactions was considered an undesirable solution. The conversation also touched on the issue of XPUB Derivation, which has not been addressed in the BIP yet. The inability to differentiate between xpub from m/44' or m/49' was identified as problematic, affecting functionalities such as importing xpub as a watch-only wallet and displaying balance/generating merchant addresses. The author of tools hd-wallet-addrs and hd-wallet-derive expressed agreement and suggested finding a way for xpub/xprv to encode their absolute path in the wallet for easier reading by tools. Another email exchange on the bitcoin-dev mailing list involved a user asking Thomas Voegtlin about the need for a different version for P2WPKH nested in BIP16 P2SH compared to P2WPKH. The user questioned if both would generate the same Bitcoin address in txout and be part of the same wallet account. Pavol Rusnak responded, expressing support for both proposals and urging the group to reach a decision soon. The discussion then moved on to proposed changes to the BIP32 serialization format, with Thomas suggesting the use of letters z, y, and z combined with pub/prv to indicate three types of keys, while Luke Dashjr favored utilizing a child number field. In a separate thread, Chris Stewart raised concerns about sidechain headers on mainchain and potential issues with invalid transactions impacting the consensus valid chain constructed by sidechain miners. He recommended incentivizing miners to collaborate by extending the coinbase maturity period on the sidechain beyond 288. Thomas later shared his own proposal for three different versions of P2WPKH nested in BIP16 P2SH for testnet and mainnet.On September 5th, 2017, Shiva Sitamraju expressed gratitude on the Bitcoin development mailing list for a procedure outlined in Electrum's documentation related to seed phrases. They questioned the value of following BIP49 and suggested proposing an alternative structure similar to Electrum. Changes to the BIP32 serialization format were proposed to differentiate segwit xpub/xprv, with new version bytes resulting in base58 prefixes and network types. The use of letters z, y, and z combined with pub/prv for three types of keys was suggested due to the existence of native and nested segwit output scripts. Testnet could utilize t, u, and v as prefixes. Shiva Sitamraju also shared four keys related to segwit mainnet and testnet.In a bitcoin-dev mailing list thread discussing scaling solutions and fee reduction, various proposals were put forward. Cserveny Tamas suggested splitting the chain, Thomas Guyot-Sionnest argued for reducing complexity without compromising security if confirmation is adjusted accordingly, and Tom Zander believed that the limit of blockchain is determined by technology and will continue to evolve. Timestamping in Bitcoin was brought up, highlighting its vulnerability to malicious miners due to the lack of a financial feedback loop. Concerns were raised about using compact SPV proofs for timestamping in OpenTimestamps, citing potential security issues and the need for further analysis.The discussion concluded with the acknowledgment that Segwit wallet seed words have a distinct format incompatible with previous wallet seed words. It was noted that Electrum has already addressed this issue by defining a structure for Segwit wallet seed words in their documentation. The writer of the message proposed breaking backwards compatibility in BIP49 due to issues with recovering wallets using seed words. They suggested creating new segwit m/49' wallets by default, with the option to choose non-segwit from advanced options. The format of segwit wallet seed words would encode the information that the wallet is segwit. Another concern raised was the lack of differentiation between xpub from m/44' and m/49', affecting functionalities like importing xpub as a watch-only wallet and displaying balance/generating merchant addresses. The writer invited thoughts on these suggestions.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T21:42:39.503945+00:00