Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Presenting a BIP for Shamir's Secret Sharing of Bitcoin private keys

From: Matt Whitlock <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 04:47:26 -0400

On Tuesday, 22 April 2014, at 10:43 am, Tamas Blummer wrote:
> It is not about taste, but the fact that BIPs are used by many chains. 
> Alts are useful for at least for experiments, and I think that the notion of main and testnet is superseeded by a wide choice of chains.

There aren't enough distinct bytes to allow for every altcoin. I believe what they do is their own business and is outside the scope of a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal.

If your argument were valid, then we would also have to apply it to private keys. Why do we bother specifying a separate encoding for Bitcoin testnet private keys? There are so many altcoins, after all.