Hello,
I have an idea. I'm not sure if it's already discussed, sorry if it's redundant. I'd post it in the appropriate section, but I can't, because I'm still a newbie. If an admin finds this thread worthy, please move it to the appropriate section.
Proposal:Store Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency addresses in DNS records.
- You wouldn't need to copy/paste Bitcoin addresses, you could just easily memorize a name.
- The DNS system is already established for the purpose of assigning names to addresses.
- Some people bring up the e-mail system for an analogy to Bitcoin addresses. Take this analogy further: like MX records assign receiving mailservers to domain names, Bitcoin address records would assign Bitcoin addresses to them.
- You could also propagate Bitcoin addresses in Namecoin chains for .bit domains, if you like.
Example:
Somename has a blog at
somename.tld, and he wants to receive Bitcoins on this domain name. He also has a Litecoin address, just in case.
; Syntax is inspired by the SPF record syntax, but the actual syntax is really open to discussion.
somename.tld IN TXT "v=Bitcoin addr=18nAftZTnH4LjY9fPPow1aF5tGD1JiF7ZH"
somename.tld IN TXT "v=Litecoin addr=LV9MiA3iPVUm8qRFYbLkARuoYwvmHwhWaC"
Then,
User wants to send Bitcoins to
Somename. He just opens his Bitcoin client and types "
somename.tld" as recipient, instead of copy-pasting lenghty string. His Bitcoin client would look up the appropriate TXT record and obtain
Somename's Bitcoin address.
Possible problems/vulnerabilities:- The DNS has known vulnerabilities, such as cache poisoning, domain hijacking, etc.. To minimize risks, Bitcoin address records could be protected by DNSSEC or could be signed by other methods.
- Since the client doesn't get the Bitcoin address from the user directly, the Bitcoin client couldn't check the typed address if its a Bitcoin or other kind of address. For example, if the user starts his Litecoin client instead of his Bitcoin client by mistake, he would possibly send Litecoins instead of Bitcoins, because the Litecoin client would also accept the domain name, since it also has a Litecoin address record.
Tell me your opinions!
MegaBrutal