Re: [bitcoin-dev] Hardware Wallet Standard

[Jonas Schnelli <dev@jonasschnelli.ch>]

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Hi Dana

>> The URI scheme does not require any sorts of wallet app level
>> configuration (where the stdio/pipe approach would require to configure
>> some details about the used hardware wallet).
> 
> Hi everybody, just thought I’d throw my opinion in here.
> 
> The URI scheme is a nice idea, but this ignores the fact that hardware wallet vendors do most of the work on talking between the computer/mobile and the wallet on a lower level of communication. In the case of BitLox, the base protocol is Google’s ProtoBuf. The commands and transaction data is in a “schema” which is then encoded in different methods accessible via ProtoBuf (depending on the data being sent). The advantages of this protocol is that it can be implemented on a wide variety of platforms. (but that’s a whole 'nother discussion)
> 
> The URI would be handled waaaaay up in the specific application (such as the mytrezor wallet software or the various standalone wallets) - nowhere near the actual hardware communications layer.

This is maybe a question of the scope.
The BIP I'm proposing would make a clear interface cut between
wallet-with-unsigned-transaction and a signing-device (and maybe between
wallet-requires-pubkey, signing-device generate some pubkeys [or
non-hardened xpub]).

The detached-signing proposal does not duplicate work. It just moves the
current plugin design into a separate application. Plugins in security
and privacy critical wallet software is something that should probably
be avoided.

It's intentional at a high level to allow maximum flexibility at the
hardware interaction layer.

Your protobuf example is a good use-case. You could implement your
custom processes behind the URI scheme (which is probably way more
efficient then writing a couple of wallet plugins where you – at the end
– mostly don't control the deployment and the source-code).

Defining a standard on the hardware interaction layer is possible, but a
fairly different approach.

</jonas>


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