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From: Thomas Voegtlin <thomasv@electrum.org>
To: "bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org"
	<bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: [bitcoin-dev] proposal: extend WIF format for segwit
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2017 10:55:37 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <34198916-cde9-c84d-ca41-9feb8956bd80@electrum.org> (raw)

The Wallet Import Format (WIF) currently appends a 0x01 byte after the
raw private key, when that key needs to be used in conjunction with a
compressed public key. This allows wallets to associate a single Bitcoin
address to a WIF key.

It would be useful to extend the semantics of that byte, to signal for
segwit scripts, because these scripts result in different addresses.
That way, a WIF private key can still be associated to a single Bitcoin
address.

What WIF currently does is:

Nothing -> uncompressed pubkey
0x01    -> compressed pubkeys, non-segwit (can be used in P2PKH or P2SH)

We could extend it as follows:

0x02 -> segwit script embedded in P2SH (P2WPKH or P2WSH)
0x03 -> native segwit script (P2WKH or P2WSH)


Note 1: This is similar to my {x,y,z}{pub,prv} proposal for bip32
extended keys. (see other thread)

Note 2: It is probably not useful to use distinct bytes for P2WKH and
P2WSH, because the P2SH script is not known anyway. We did not do it for
non-segwit addresses, I guess we should keep it the way it is.

Note 3: we could also use a bech32 format for the private key, if it is
going to be used with a bech32 address. I am not sure if such a format
has been proposed already.

Note 4: my proposal will not result in a user visible change at the
beginning of the string, like we have for compressed/uncompressed. This
could be improved.


             reply	other threads:[~2017-09-15  8:55 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-09-15  8:55 Thomas Voegtlin [this message]
2017-09-17  2:29 ` [bitcoin-dev] proposal: extend WIF format for segwit Pieter Wuille
2017-09-17  8:10   ` Thomas Voegtlin
2017-09-17 14:42     ` AJ West
2017-09-17 15:36       ` Mark Friedenbach
2018-04-04  6:06         ` Karl Johan Alm
2018-04-10  2:54           ` Karl-Johan Alm

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