Subject: [Bitcoin-development] BIP-13

From: Michael Grønager <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:17:01 +0100

Just posted this on the wiki BIP-13 discussion - should I make it into a BIP of its own ?

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The "version" portion of the address has so far been labeled "network id", and indicates from which network and which chain the address can be used for. I think that this change from network id to version is much more fundamental and should not just be squeezed in along with bip16/17. The right way to do this is to structure the bitcoin address into:

base58-encode: [one-byte network ID][20-byte hash][one-byte address class][3-byte checksum]

This will move the possibility of using a faulty address from 1 to 4bill to 1 to 24mio. Recall that for most other payment systems this checksum is 1 to 9! So it should be sufficient. An old client will then render the new addresses as useless and they will still maintain their old familiar 1xxx look - the whole point in multisig is that it should not be a matter of the paying party to worry about securing wallet of the receiver, hence he should not be bothered with a new "3" kind of address now... --Michael Gronager/libcoin 10:49, 20 February 2012 (GMT)