Bitcoin Silent Payments

[DYING_S0UL]

The title says all...

I have been using cakewallet for quite some times now and there I saw an option for "Bitcoin silent payment". Actually this is my first time hearing about it and I'm curious to know how it works! I know its supposed to make Bitcoin transactions more private (I guess). But how? Can someone explain in simple terms how silent payments actually function? Like, how is's different from a regular Bitcoin transaction, and what makes it more private?

If I'm at the wrong board then move it.

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

I use cake too as a mobile wallet. Click the question mark on the image you provided and you get redirected to a full explanation of how it works. Anyways the glimpse of it all is almost like partially running a node so you have to actually sync with the blockchain if you turn it on , it consumes more internet but it's worth it. Nodes see a lot of data concerning our wallet when we connect to them but silent payment kinda blurs your transactions.

[TryNinja]

https://silentpayments.xyz/docs/

Silent Payments allow you to create a single, static address to share with friends, use for donations, or post for tips without sacrificing privacy. When someone wants to send you a payment, they use the unique public key that is a part of your Silent Payment address, combine it with the public keys of the outputs they want to send and generate a unique, one-time address that looks on-chain just like any other Taproot address. The main advantages of Silent Payments are:

- Simpler user experience: users just need to worry about a single, static address instead of the hurdles of generating new addresses for every receive.
- Better receiver privacy: address re-use with Silent Payments is impossible, as no two senders can generate the same on-chain address.
- Better sender privacy: receivers have no way of connecting sends from the same receiver together, providing better privacy for even the sender.
- No server required: anyone with a wallet supporting Silent Payments can receive funds without address reuse, without communication, and without running complex infrastructure.

Basically, you post a single address and every time someone is going to send to that address, the coins actually go to a new (unused) address that you control, so there is no address reusing and yet you don't have to manually go around sharing different addresses to every different person that wants to send you coins.

[Charles-Tim]

If you want to read more about it, you can read about it also on this thread: Silent payments.

It can increase privacy and make addresses reuse impossible.

[PX-Z]

It can increase privacy and make addresses reuse impossible.

I see it's already there since 2022, i just heard it actually. And it's great for privacy enthusiast. Is there a known list on what wallets support such feature?

Edit: i found this thread Wallets supporting Silent Payments
but its outdated. It has last update on december last year.

[Charles-Tim]

I see it's already there since 2022, i just heard it actually. And it's great for privacy enthusiast. Is there a known list on what wallets support such feature?

Edit: i found this thread Wallets supporting Silent Payments
but its outdated. It has last update on december last year.

Most wallets are not yet supporting it. I may give Cake wallet a try soon as I see it to be a good wallet. It would be a good wallet.

This is another lists but updated last in January of this year. No much difference from the link that you posted.
https://silentpayments.xyz/docs/wallets/

[BitMaxz]

There's a different explanation about Bitcoin silent payment on Cake Wallet; they mention of using Taproot. I guess is that they are providing a taproot address that has multiple addresses. That is what they said there, that you can give your address to the sender once, and the sender can derive infinite addresses from the one address you give to the sender.

I don't know why others have different explanations about this, but based on the explanation from Cake Wallet, it's a single address that starts with sp1, a static address that contains infinite addresses.

That guy who is going to send will send to a random address derived from a static address. And you as a receiver will scan the entire address from your static address and identify the payment on the blockchain to verify that you received the payment.
Check this infographics below:

[Charles-Tim]

There's a different explanation about Bitcoin silent payment on Cake Wallet; they mention of using Taproot. I guess is that they are providing a taproot address that has multiple addresses. That is what they said there, that you can give your address to the sender once, and the sender can derive infinite addresses from the one address you give to the sender.

I don't know why others have different explanations about this, but based on the explanation from Cake Wallet, it's a single address that starts with sp1, a static address that contains infinite addresses.

The explanation is not different. The static address that starts from sp1 will be sent to the person that want to send the coin, the sender will send the coin onchain but to a taproot address.

It is worth knowing that the static address can not be seen onchain but it can be sent to the sender to send bitcoin to to receiver through a taproot address. If the static address is sent to another person (the sender), the sender will send the coins to a different taproot address.

The OP can also read this for infographics and detailed explanation: https://bitcoin.design/guide/how-it-works/silent-payments/

[DYING_S0UL]

Thank you everyone for the explanations and the links. I don't wanna be someone who creates a post and then disappears. I was/am at the hospital currently. One of my relative is admitted there so I'm running a bit here and there. I'll get back to everyone as soon as I wrap up things there.

[Lucius]

It's not the first time I've heard about it, but honestly I didn't pay too much attention to such things a few years ago. I also occasionally used the same wallet as the OP and noticed that option and now that I'm reading this topic I wonder why every wallet doesn't have this option if it's really so good for privacy?

Maybe we should start promoting this way of sending/receiving BTC on this forum - maybe signature campaigns would be ideal for something like that?

[Charles-Tim]

I also occasionally used the same wallet as the OP and noticed that option and now that I'm reading this topic I wonder why every wallet doesn't have this option if it's really so good for privacy?

All wallets that does not support taproot can not have it. While some that support taproot will support it but not all. I wonder why most wallets do not also support it.

Maybe we should start promoting this way of sending/receiving BTC on this forum - maybe signature campaigns would be ideal for something like that?

I think most managers on this forum are using Electrum send to multiple addresses. Among those few wallets mentioned, only like 4 among them support receiving from silent payment, but which one has send to many addresses at once?

For privacy on this forum, campaign managers can keep the spread sheet available only to campaign participants.

[DYING_S0UL]

I also occasionally used the same wallet as the OP and noticed that option and now that I'm reading this topic I wonder why every wallet doesn't have this option if it's really so good for privacy?

All wallets that does not support taproot can not have it. While some that support taproot will support it but not all. I wonder why most wallets do not also support it.

I have went through most of the links, docs you guys provided, read as much as I could. And now that I have done it, the only thing that's brothering me is WHY? Why isn't it used in everyday transactions or why wasn't it implemented? Afaik, only a few wallet currently suppport silent payments. Is it too hard, would it create complications? Questions like these. 

[LoyceV]

Why isn't it used in everyday transactions or why wasn't it implemented?

If you send Bitcoin to a normal address, it simply appears on the blockchain. But if you send Bitcoin to a Silent Payment address, your wallet needs to do much more work to find which funded Bitcoin addresses belong to you.

[DYING_S0UL]

Why isn't it used in everyday transactions or why wasn't it implemented?

If you send Bitcoin to a normal address, it simply appears on the blockchain. But if you send Bitcoin to a Silent Payment address, your wallet needs to do much more work to find which funded Bitcoin addresses belong to you.

Even with all that work don't you think this thing should be added since privacy is involved here? Or does it comes with other disadvantages? More cost? Please enlightened me if you can. I really don't know / can't understand why this isn't suppprted by many.

[HeRetiK]

Even with all that work don't you think this thing should be added since privacy is involved here? Or does it comes with other disadvantages? More cost? Please enlightened me if you can. I really don't know / can't understand why this isn't suppprted by many.

There's pull requests concerning Silent Payments for both Electrum [1] and Bitcoin Core [2] so it's presumably mostly a question of implementation complexity and prioritization. Put differently, it looks like there's work being done, but it simply takes time to integrate.

[1] https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/9728
[2] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/28122

[Lucius]

Why isn't it used in everyday transactions or why wasn't it implemented?

If you send Bitcoin to a normal address, it simply appears on the blockchain. But if you send Bitcoin to a Silent Payment address, your wallet needs to do much more work to find which funded Bitcoin addresses belong to you.

I selected that option in Cake wallet and it seems like the wallet has to download a lot of data to make the whole thing operational. From what I can see, it's quite slow and stops when the screen turns off, so it's not as simple as it seems at first glance.

[LoyceV]

Even with all that work don't you think this thing should be added since privacy is involved here?

I think it's good to keep this optional. I have Bitcoin addresses that I used 10 years ago, and I could easily check their balance in case one of them receives a transaction. If those would be Silent addresses, I'd have to rescan 10 years of blockchain just to see if any of them received anything. If you sync an old wallet on Feather Wallet (Monero), that gives you an idea of how long that's going to take.

Or does it comes with other disadvantages? More cost? Please enlightened me if you can. I really don't know / can't understand why this isn't suppprted by many.

For one, I'd expect the light wallet's server load to increase significantly, and I expect it's implementation to be more complicated. But I don't know all the details.
I do know I wouldn't want (nor need) to use this for all my transactions.

[DYING_S0UL]

I selected that option in Cake wallet and it seems like the wallet has to download a lot of data to make the whole thing operational. From what I can see, it's quite slow and stops when the screen turns off, so it's not as simple as it seems at first glance.

Yeah it was taking a lot of times. I kept waiting and waiting but the count wasn't moving much. Who knows, how many minutes, hours or days it would take to scan all those blocks. I got bored and had other things to do, so I just turned it off. So, I agree with u here, not as simple as it looks.

If those would be Silent addresses, I'd have to rescan 10 years of blockchain just to see if any of them received anything. If you sync an old wallet on Feather Wallet (Monero), that gives you an idea of how long that's going to take.

I don't have any Monero nor I used feather wallet before. So I wouldn't know. But I got the idea. Scanning 10 years worth of blockchain is certainly a time very consuming job.