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From: Andreas Schildbach <andreas@schildbach.de>
To: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] New BIP32 structure
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 00:37:46 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <lgvobr$q44$1@ger.gmane.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANEZrP2hbBVGqytmXR1rAcVama4ONnR586Se-Ch=dsxOzy2O4w@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks for starting the discussion on finding a better structure.

For me, the most important thing is either we're 100% interoperable or
0%. There should not be anything inbetween, as users will delete seeds
without knowing there is still money in them on another implementation.
I heard from multiple sources that using this standard some wallets will
only see a subset of the addresses/keys of some other wallets.
Implementation differences can always happen (and should addresses as
bugs), but I think its unacceptable that this source of issues is by design.

I suggest we agree on an even simpler least common denominator and
wallets that want to implement some feature on top of that can do but
are encouraged to pick a totally different "cointype". I guess that
would mean removing reserved and account.

I'm still thinking it might be a good idea to have a separate chain for
"refunds". Refunds will be rarely used and thus need a much slower
moving window than receiving addresses or change.


On 03/26/2014 09:49 PM, Mike Hearn wrote:
> Myself, Thomas V (Electrum) and Marek (Trezor) got together to make sure
> our BIP32 wallet structures would be compatible - and I discovered that
> only I was planning to use the default structure.
> 
> Because I'm hopeful that we can get a lot of interoperability between
> wallets with regards to importing 12-words paper wallets, we
> brainstormed to find a structure acceptable to everyone and ended up with:
> 
>   /m/cointype/reserved'/account'/change/n
> 
> The extra levels require some explanation:
> 
>   * cointype:  This is zero for Bitcoin. This is here to support two
>     things, one is supporting alt coins based off the same root seed.
>     Right now nobody seemed very bothered about alt coins but sometimes
>     feature requests do come in for this. Arguably there is no need and
>     alt coins could just use the same keys as Bitcoin, but it may help
>     avoid confusion if they don't.
> 
>     More usefully, cointype can distinguish between keys intended for
>     things like multisig outputs, e.g. for watchdog services. This means
>     if your wallet does not know about the extra protocol layers
>     involved in this, it can still import the "raw" money and it will
>     just ignore/not see the keys used in more complex transactions.
> 
>   * reserved is for "other stuff". I actually don't recall why we ended
>     up with this. It may have been intended to split out multisig
>     outputs etc from cointype. Marek, Thomas?
> 
>   * account is for keeping essentially wallets-within-a-wallet to avoid
>     mixing of coins. If you want that.
> 
>   * change is 0 for receiving addresses, 1 for change addresses.
> 
>   * n is the actual key index
> 
> For bitcoinj we're targeting a deliberately limited feature set for hdw
> v1 so I would just set the first three values all to zero and that is a
> perfectly fine way to be compatible.
> 
> The goal here is that the same seed can be written down once, and meet
> all the users needs, whilst still allowing some drift between what
> wallets support.
> 
> Pieter made the I think valid point that you can't really encode how
> keys are meant to be used into just an HDW hierarchy and normally you'd
> need some metadata as well. However, I feel interop between wallets is
> more important than arriving at the most perfect possible arrangement,
> which feels a little like bikeshedding, so I'm happy to just go with the
> flow on this one.
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Bitcoin-development mailing list
> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
> 





  reply	other threads:[~2014-03-26 23:38 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 100+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2014-03-26 20:49 [Bitcoin-development] New BIP32 structure Mike Hearn
2014-03-26 23:37 ` Andreas Schildbach [this message]
2014-03-27  1:01   ` Alan Reiner
2014-03-27  6:15     ` Mike Belshe
2014-03-27 10:57   ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-03-27 11:39     ` Mike Hearn
2014-03-27 13:30       ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-03-27 13:38         ` Mike Hearn
2014-03-27  1:13 ` Allen Piscitello
2014-03-27  5:34 ` Troy Benjegerdes
2014-03-27  7:09 ` Tamas Blummer
2014-03-27  9:42   ` Mike Hearn
2014-03-27 11:35   ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-03-27 15:43   ` Jeff Garzik
2014-03-27 15:57     ` Allen Piscitello
2014-03-27 16:06       ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-03-27 16:13         ` Allen Piscitello
2014-03-27 16:07       ` Tamas Blummer
2014-03-27 16:14       ` Pieter Wuille
2014-03-27 16:21         ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-03-27 16:28           ` Pieter Wuille
2014-03-27 17:49             ` Allen Piscitello
2014-03-28 14:59             ` slush
2014-04-08 12:43               ` slush
2014-04-08 13:18                 ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-08 13:40                   ` slush
2014-04-08 13:43                     ` slush
2014-04-08 13:53                       ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-08 13:59                         ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-04-08 14:00                         ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-08 14:35                         ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-08 15:41                         ` slush
2014-04-23 17:42                           ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-23 18:01                             ` slush
2014-04-23 18:18                               ` slush
2014-04-23 18:39                                 ` Tier Nolan
2014-04-23 18:46                                   ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 19:00                                     ` Tier Nolan
2014-04-23 19:06                                       ` slush
2014-04-23 19:36                                         ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-23 19:46                                           ` slush
2014-04-23 19:07                                       ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-23 19:29                                       ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 19:44                                         ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 19:49                                           ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 19:55                                             ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 19:57                                               ` slush
2014-04-23 20:01                                                 ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 20:04                                                   ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 20:09                                                     ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 20:16                                                       ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 20:32                                                         ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 20:35                                                           ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 20:41                                                             ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 20:43                                                               ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 20:54                                                                 ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-23 21:06                                                                   ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 21:18                                                                     ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 21:22                                                                       ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-23 21:33                                                                         ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 21:42                                                                           ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-23 21:44                                                                             ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 21:48                                                                             ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-23 21:53                                                                           ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 21:24                                                                       ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-04-23 21:07                                                                   ` slush
2014-04-23 20:59                                                                 ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 20:17                                                       ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-23 20:12                                                     ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-23 20:08                                                   ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-23 20:01                                               ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-23 20:02                                                 ` Luke-Jr
2014-04-23 20:04                                                   ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-24  6:54                                           ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-04-24  7:10                                             ` Pieter Wuille
2014-04-24  7:21                                               ` Gregory Maxwell
2014-04-24  8:15                                                 ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-04-24  7:42                                               ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-04-24  8:09                                               ` Mike Hearn
2014-04-23 18:48                                   ` Tamas Blummer
2014-04-08 14:49                 ` Andreas Schildbach
2014-04-08 15:46                   ` slush
2014-04-08 15:58                     ` Andreas Schildbach
2014-04-08 16:24                       ` slush
2014-03-27 11:20 ` Thomas Voegtlin
     [not found]   ` <CAJna-HhmFya+3W67qQt0wMhW=B4vJvwdkr-5WnU+KEaKq7uaUA@mail.gmail.com>
2014-03-27 12:06     ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-03-27 12:28       ` Mike Hearn
2014-03-27 12:49         ` Mike Hearn
2014-03-27 13:12           ` Thomas Kerin
2014-03-27 13:19             ` Mike Hearn
2014-03-27 13:49           ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-03-27 13:58             ` Jim
2014-03-27 14:20               ` Mike Hearn
2014-03-27 15:17             ` Troy Benjegerdes
2014-03-27 13:07         ` Matias Alejo Garcia
2014-03-27 13:44       ` Pavol Rusnak
2014-03-27 13:53         ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-03-27 14:03           ` Pavol Rusnak
     [not found]       ` <CAJna-HitjJbL9TnfxTY=+TvfaeNvZM6aPWmNYmHUCwmw6V8PUg@mail.gmail.com>
2014-03-27 15:04         ` Thomas Voegtlin
2014-03-27 11:36 ` Pavol Rusnak

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