IDEA: Transaction forwarding

[r3wt]

I was thinking about a common problem we have with transaction/wallet bloat. One of the main problems with swapping out wallets in an exchange environment is the risk that a customer will deposit to an old address and then cause a big shit fit about it on social media.

So i had a small idea. Not sure if its been proposed before, but i thought i would mention it.

I would love to see a scheme implemented whereby you could setup transaction forwarding, by destroying the address and replacing it with the address to forward to, so all transactions to the old address would be forwarded to the new address.


A2A's:

1. Is it even technically possible?

2. Is it a bad idea?

3. What could be some possible problems with this idea?

4. Is it a security vulnerability?

5. could this be encoded in a transaction somehow?

[josef2000]

1. Is it even technically possible?

No it isnt, at least not directly within the bitcoin network. However there may be some third party services that might allow you to do so by giving them wallet access, but then you would have to wait for 2 confirmations and pay 0.0002 fees.

2. Is that a bad idea

Honestly, no. Not at all. This is brilliant, but I think it couldnt be implented into Bitcoin directly.

3. What could be some possible problems with this idea?

If this is implented into the bitcoin network, this could mean good news for hackers etc. They could just foward all the bitcoins you get from other addresses to them. If there are third party services, your wallet wont be safe, because they keep them in the servers and if the server is hacked, your bitcoins are gone

4. Is it a security vulnerability?

This could be a serious vulnerability. The answer above is answering it ^

[cbeast]

No. You must keep a copy of all your keys if you think this might happen. You can always just print out a hard copy or make backup copies. Either way, it might be a good idea to import the public addresses into a watch only wallet.

[Snail2]

No. You must keep a copy of all your keys if you think this might happen. You can always just print out a hard copy or make backup copies. Either way, it might be a good idea to import the public addresses into a watch only wallet.

On most exchanges unfortunately you cannot get your private keys.

[cbeast]

No. You must keep a copy of all your keys if you think this might happen. You can always just print out a hard copy or make backup copies. Either way, it might be a good idea to import the public addresses into a watch only wallet.

On most exchanges unfortunately you cannot get your private keys.

Then those are not your addresses. That's a problem that people don't seem to understand. They think because someone allows them to borrow an address, that somehow they have an account. That's not how Bitcoin works unless they give you the private keys or at least a set of multisig keys.

[Snail2]

I was thinking about a common problem we have with transaction/wallet bloat. One of the main problems with swapping out wallets in an exchange environment is the risk that a customer will deposit to an old address and then cause a big shit fit about it on social media.

So i had a small idea. Not sure if its been proposed before, but i thought i would mention it.

I would love to see a scheme implemented whereby you could setup transaction forwarding, by destroying the address and replacing it with the address to forward to, so all transactions to the old address would be forwarded to the new address.


A2A's:

1. Is it even technically possible?

2. Is it a bad idea?

3. What could be some possible problems with this idea?

4. Is it a security vulnerability?

5. could this be encoded in a transaction somehow?

Good idea but I think it would be difficult to implement such pointers in the bitcoin-core.

[Snail2]

Then those are not your addresses. That's a problem that people don't seem to understand. They think because someone allows them to borrow an address, that somehow they have an account. That's not how Bitcoin works unless they give you the private keys or at least a set of multisig keys.

No, in many cases those addresses just additional addresses for one common wallet.

[odolvlobo]

I would love to see a scheme implemented whereby you could setup transaction forwarding, by destroying the address and replacing it with the address to forward to, so all transactions to the old address would be forwarded to the new address.
1. Is it even technically poss
2. Is it a bad idea?
3. What could be some possible problems with this idea?
4. Is it a security vulnerability?
5. could this be encoded in a transaction somehow?

It would be technically possible by changing the protocol, but it would be a bad idea because it would create information stored in the block chain that could never be pruned. There could also be a problem of circular references.

I feel that forwarding should be done by the person and not the miners because it can already be done by the person without requiring special involvement by miners.

[ticoti]

It looks a good idea,but you can't destroy addresses in bitcoin, besides it could lead to problems of hacking and forwarding addresses to the hackers,losing your bitcoins

[StevenS]

However there may be some third party services that might allow you to do so by giving them wallet access, but then you would have to wait for 2 confirmations and pay 0.0002 fees.

That would be the best implementation. It could be a service offered by a reputable Bitcoin company, such as Blockchain.info. You would give them your old private key (that you don't intend to use anymore anyway), and your new address. They would provide a permanent forwarding service in exchange for a small percentage of the coin transferred.

Yes, this is not 100% secure, but its better than forgetting your old address that you never intend to use again, not backing up the key, and then having a customer use this old address that he wasn't supposed to use.

I mentioned Blockchain.info above because they already have the framework set up to do such a function in their Receive Payments API, which allows you to create a new address, and will have anything sent to it forwarded to an address you specify. It also calls a URL when with happens! The only addition they would have to make is allow the user to specify the private key instead of having the API do it.

[r3wt]

However there may be some third party services that might allow you to do so by giving them wallet access, but then you would have to wait for 2 confirmations and pay 0.0002 fees.

That would be the best implementation. It could be a service offered by a reputable Bitcoin company, such as Blockchain.info. You would give them your old private key (that you don't intend to use anymore anyway), and your new address. They would provide a permanent forwarding service in exchange for a small percentage of the coin transferred.

Yes, this is not 100% secure, but its better than forgetting your old address that you never intend to use again, not backing up the key, and then having a customer use this old address that he wasn't supposed to use.

I mentioned Blockchain.info above because they already have the framework set up to do such a function in their Receive Payments API, which allows you to create a new address, and will have anything sent to it forwarded to an address you specify. It also calls a URL when with happens! The only addition they would have to make is allow the user to specify the private key instead of having the API do it.

Yeah, the only other option for a business is having a low priority wallet for old keys, that you run a deep scan on every X hours, since its so bloated with spam the RPC call might take 20 minutes.

[countryfree]

One of the main problems with swapping out wallets in an exchange environment is the risk that a customer will deposit to an old address

I don't think there's a big risk.
I'm making wire transfers very often, and I ALWAYS double-check, or triple-check, the IBAN I'm sending money to. I know that once the money is gone, it's gone for good. So, I'm very, very cautious.