Author: Peter D. Gray 2021-09-01 13:39:30
Published on: 2021-09-01T13:39:30+00:00
In a recent discussion on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list, Peter D. Gray proposed registering three MIME (RFC 2046) media types with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for Bitcoin-related content: bitcoin/psbt, bitcoin/txn, and bitcoin/uri. However, Andrew Chow noted that he attempted to register "application/bitcoin-psbt" in 2019 but it was not accepted. There are only a few accepted top-level types, and "bitcoin" cannot be used as the top-level type unless an RFC is submitted to add a "bitcoin" top-level. Chow also explained that the best tree for the MIME type would be the Standards tree, which requires registration either associated with an IETF specification (an RFC) or registered by a recognized standards-related organization. Unfortunately, the closest thing to a standards organization that Bitcoin has is the BIP process, which is not recognized by IANA. Another alternative would be to use the Vendor tree, which would prefix the MIME type with "vnd. ", resulting in something like "application/vnd.bitcoin.psbt". However, Chow did not find this option reasonable. Based on his experience, Chow suggested ignoring the IANA and declaring a few useful "mime types" in a new BIP, agreeing inside the Bitcoin community on their usage and meaning. He invited anyone to write the BIP and shepherd it, while he would rather write code.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T01:22:26.684012+00:00