Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Optional "wallet-linkable" address format - Payment Protocol

From: Alan Reiner <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 09:37:36 -0400

On 06/19/2013 08:19 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>
> Generally in favour of hierarchical deterministic wallets.
>
> Will this new style of address make it into the block chain?  I'd be
> less keen on that.
>
> I'm finding BIP0032 quite hard to read right now, but perhaps that's
> because I'm less familiar with the material than some.  However,
> there's little things like it never actually defines a deterministic
> wallet in the Abstract.  But, I'll keep trying to understand and see
> if I can use the test vectors.
>  
>
>

This has nothing to do with the blockchain.  This is simply an alternate
way to encode an address, in the event that you want to prove that this
address is linked to another address.  The same thing ends up in the
blockchain, either way.

Either:
(1) I give you a Hash160 address which shows up in the blockchain
or
(2) I give you {PubKey, Mult}, then you compute PubKey*Mult then hash it
to get the same Hash160 I would've given you in (1)

I can always give you version #1, and that's what everyone does right
now.  Version #2 is essentially the same, but used if you want to give
the other party extra information (such as the root public key, so that
the next time you send a version#2 address they can see they are from
the same root public key).