Re: [bitcoin-dev] Named Bitcoin Addresses

From: Andy Chase <theandychase@gmail•com>
To: Mark Friedenbach <mark@friedenbach•org>
Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Named Bitcoin Addresses
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2015 02:43:54 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAAxp-m9upffFeuf_SQM2OzSh=Jf-8QX3Rie6w73s0yLPMirGTA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAOG=w-vsp6Oxx3WsjVoQ9xO41SqgUMw97h0Ba1jSd9s=KZL6wQ@mail.gmail.com>

What's some more information about the "memorizing and sharing" use
case? In most cases if you wanted someone to send you money you'd send
them a payment request via email (or just send them your address).

There's a bunch of solutions to your problem listed here:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0015.mediawiki
But sending a payment request via BIP-70 is the "best practice":
https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0070.mediawiki

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 2:32 PM, Mark Friedenbach via bitcoin-dev
<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Are you aware of the payment protocol?
>
> On Sep 10, 2015 2:12 PM, "essofluffy . via bitcoin-dev"
> <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> An issue I'm sure everyone here is familiar with is the problem concerning
>> the fact that Bitcoin addresses are too complex to memorize and share.
>> Current Bitcoin addresses can be very intimidating to new users. As Bitcoin
>> grows it's necessary to provide a much more user friendly experience to the
>> end user. I think that having the capability to assign a unique name to a
>> Bitcoin address is in the best interest of Bitcoin and it's users.
>> I've recently come up with a method for assigning a unique name to a
>> specific Bitcoin address. I'm looking to get some feedback/criticism on this
>> method that I have detailed below.
>>
>> Let’s run through Bob and Alice transacting with a Named Bitcoin Address.
>> Bob wants to collect a payment from Alice for a service/good he is
>> selling, but Alice wants to pay from her home computer where she securely
>> keeps all her Bitcoin. So now Bob needs to give Alice his Bitcoin address
>> and because Bob is using a Named Bitcoin Address and a supported wallet he
>> can give her an easy to memorize and hard to mess up address. Bob’s address
>> is simply ‘SendBitcoinsToBob’ which can easily be written down or memorized.
>> Now Alice can go home send the Bitcoin from her own supported wallet and be
>> positive that she sent it to Bob.
>>
>> Let’s look at how Bob’s supported wallet made that address.
>>
>> First Bob let’s his wallet know that he wants to create a new address. In
>> response, his wallet simply asks him what he wants that address to be named.
>> Bob then enters ‘SendBitcoinsToBob’ as his preferred address name. The
>> wallet then let’s Bob know if his preferred address name is available. If
>> it’s available the name is broadcasted to the network and ready to use.
>>
>> Now let’s get a little more technical.
>>
>> When Bob inputs his preferred address name the client has to make sure
>> this name hasn’t been taken or else who knows where Alice will be sending
>> her Bitcoins. The client does this by referencing a downloaded “directory”
>> of names chosen by people using this system. This directory of names are
>> transactions sent to an address without a private key (but still viewable on
>> the blockchain) with the name appended to the transactions as an OP_RETURN
>> output. These transactions are downloaded or indexed, depending on whether
>> or not the wallet contains the full Blockchain or is an SPV wallet. Because
>> of such a large amount of possible address names a binary search method is
>> used to search through all this data efficiently. The names could be sorted
>> in two ways, the first being the first character and the second being the
>> total length of the name (I will being exploring additional methods to make
>> this process more efficient). So now that Bob’s client has verified that the
>> name has not been taken and is valid (valid meaning it's under 35 bytes long
>> and only using chars 0-9 and a-z) it sends a transaction of 1 satoshi and a
>> small fee to the address without a private key as talked about earlier. The
>> transaction's OP_RETURN output consists of two parts. The implementation
>> version of this method (up to 8 characters) and the name itself (up to 32
>> characters). Once the transaction is broadcasted to the network and
>> confirmed the name is ready to be used.
>>
>> Let’s look at how Alice’s supported wallet sends her Bitcoin to Bob’s
>> Named Bitcoin Address.
>>
>> When Alice enters in Bob’s address, ‘SendBitcoinsToBob’ Alice’s client
>> references the same “directory” as Bob only on her device and searches for
>> the OP_RETURN output of ‘SendBitcoinsToBob’ using a very similar binary
>> search method as used for the verification of the availability of an address
>> name. If a name isn’t found the client would simply return an error. If the
>> name is found then the client will pull the information of that transaction
>> and use the address it was sent from as the address to send the Bitcoin to.
>>
>> Essentially what this idea describes is a method to assign a name to a
>> Bitcoin address in a way that is completely verifiable and independent of a
>> third party.
>>
>> Please ask your questions and provide feedback.
>>
>> - Devin
>>
>>
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>
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