Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Hardware Wallet Standard

From: "Dana L. Coe" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:13:29 +0800

> On Aug 17, 2016, at 15:24, Jonas Schnelli via bitcoin-dev <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> URI scheme instead of stdio/pipe
> --------------------------------
> The URI scheme is not ugly. Its a modern way – implemented in almost all
> platforms – how applications can interact with each other while not
> directly knowing each other. Registering a URI scheme like "bitcoin://"
> has some concrete advantages over just piping through stdio.
> 
> Also, the stdio/piping approach does not work for mobile platforms
> (where the URI scheme works).
> 
> The URI scheme does not require any sorts of wallet app level
> configuration (where the stdio/pipe approach would require to configure
> some details about the used hardware wallet).

Hi everybody, just thought I’d throw my opinion in here.

The URI scheme is a nice idea, but this ignores the fact that hardware wallet vendors do most of the work on talking between the computer/mobile and the wallet on a lower level of communication. In the case of BitLox, the base protocol is Google’s ProtoBuf. The commands and transaction data is in a “schema” which is then encoded in different methods accessible via ProtoBuf (depending on the data being sent). The advantages of this protocol is that it can be implemented on a wide variety of platforms. (but that’s a whole 'nother discussion)

The URI would be handled waaaaay up in the specific application (such as the mytrezor wallet software or the various standalone wallets) - nowhere near the actual hardware communications layer.

Best regards,
Dana
BitLox