Will the Stealth BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) ever be done?

[ABISprotocol]

Long story short, right now I think my time is better spent focusing on more fundemental issues with Bitcoin like scalability.

I've also got no-one interested in funding stealth address development right now; I do need to pay rent!

Peter,

If you publish here a bitcoin address that is specific to funding the stealth BIP (# 63 as currently shown at https://github.com/bitcoin/bips) then I, and others here who support that, will publish that address and I suspect, that you will receive funds at that address, as people will be happy to donate (I certainly will contribute to it.)  The effect of this will be amplified if you mention it on one of your social feed (twitter or wherever else).

-ABISprotocol

Edit:  There are at least a few other people so far who have said in this discussion thread that they'd donate as well - you can see their comments here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1083961.msg11572012#msg11572012

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[ABISprotocol]

Don't several wallets implement stealth addresses already? 
Why do you want this github BIP?  Just go do what you need to already. 

There are some wallets that incorporate stealth address concept to different degrees, the problem comes when there isn't support throughout the whole system, and it's not just a matter in core, but the absence of a BIP also affects other wallet developers such as the Electrum folk as originally mentioned in one of the links in my post which kicked off this thread. 

What needs to be done, if I'm hearing this correctly from Peter Todd's perspective, is get him some financial (bitcoin) support for stealth BIP (63) in order for something to be done on it.

Just waiting for a bitcoin address to be published from him specific for that here.

[funkenstein]

Don't several wallets implement stealth addresses already? 
Why do you want this github BIP?  Just go do what you need to already. 

There are some wallets that incorporate stealth address concept to different degrees, the problem comes when there isn't support throughout the whole system, and it's not just a matter in core, but the absence of a BIP also affects other wallet developers such as the Electrum folk as originally mentioned in one of the links in my post which kicked off this thread. 

What needs to be done, if I'm hearing this correctly from Peter Todd's perspective, is get him some financial (bitcoin) support for stealth BIP (63) in order for something to be done on it.

Just waiting for a bitcoin address to be published from him specific for that here.

Good point, some documentation can't hurt.

You could offer a reward for a nicely written RFC. 

[manselr]

Correct me if im wrong,but doesn't giving a master public key have the same result? For example, in Electrum, you give someone your master public key so they can pay you, creating a brand new, 1-time only address

The difference is: with a master public key, the sender can use it to figure out who else paid money to that address, past and future. With stealth addresses, the sender knows only the address they sent to (or maybe not even that... but you could work it out in any case by looking at which block it was confirmed into and how much the transaction was for)

How could the sender figure out who else paid money on that master public key if you created it only for him? The idea would be creating a different mpubkey for each individual.
Of course stealth addresses sound really cool and I hope it gets implemented. Right now the anonymity features of BTC are pretty poor and Gmaxwell seems to agree on this too.

[Carlton Banks]

Correct me if im wrong,but doesn't giving a master public key have the same result? For example, in Electrum, you give someone your master public key so they can pay you, creating a brand new, 1-time only address

The difference is: with a master public key, the sender can use it to figure out who else paid money to that address, past and future. With stealth addresses, the sender knows only the address they sent to (or maybe not even that... but you could work it out in any case by looking at which block it was confirmed into and how much the transaction was for)

How could the sender figure out who else paid money on that master public key if you created it only for him? The idea would be creating a different mpubkey for each individual.
Of course stealth addresses sound really cool and I hope it gets implemented. Right now the anonymity features of BTC are pretty poor and Gmaxwell seems to agree on this too.

I was comparing xpub keys and stealth keys when you make either type publicly available, there's a reason to do that for some use cases (e.g. accountability for a charity) and in others to use stealth keys (I don't like that term for them really, doesn't really explain what they do too well). It would be nice if the privacy was better by default, it seems we could get some of the way there on the proposed confidential chain.

[funkenstein]

Correct me if im wrong,but doesn't giving a master public key have the same result? For example, in Electrum, you give someone your master public key so they can pay you, creating a brand new, 1-time only address

The difference is: with a master public key, the sender can use it to figure out who else paid money to that address, past and future. With stealth addresses, the sender knows only the address they sent to (or maybe not even that... but you could work it out in any case by looking at which block it was confirmed into and how much the transaction was for)

How could the sender figure out who else paid money on that master public key if you created it only for him? The idea would be creating a different mpubkey for each individual.
Of course stealth addresses sound really cool and I hope it gets implemented. Right now the anonymity features of BTC are pretty poor and Gmaxwell seems to agree on this too.

Stealth addresses are usable now.  So are mixers.  What is your problem exactly? 

[funkenstein]

Correct me if im wrong,but doesn't giving a master public key have the same result? For example, in Electrum, you give someone your master public key so they can pay you, creating a brand new, 1-time only address

The difference is: with a master public key, the sender can use it to figure out who else paid money to that address, past and future. With stealth addresses, the sender knows only the address they sent to (or maybe not even that... but you could work it out in any case by looking at which block it was confirmed into and how much the transaction was for)

How could the sender figure out who else paid money on that master public key if you created it only for him? The idea would be creating a different mpubkey for each individual.
Of course stealth addresses sound really cool and I hope it gets implemented. Right now the anonymity features of BTC are pretty poor and Gmaxwell seems to agree on this too.

Stealth addresses are usable now.  So are mixers.  What is your problem exactly? 

What are you talking about? Mixers are a bunch of potential scams and honeypots in the making! And what stealth address that are usable now do you mean?

So: bump!

As to mixers, I was referring to coinjoin services, and DIY using altcoins and exchanges.  But yeah you have a good point; exchanges are also potential scams and honeypots.. as indeed are third party mixer services, which also includes "gambling" services (you didn't think that many people really gambled did you?). 

Stealth addresses work already, you just need a way to communicate a nonce to the recipient.  Some wallets (like darkwallet) use op_return, others.. I'm not sure.   

[ABISprotocol]

Correct me if im wrong,but doesn't giving a master public key have the same result? For example, in Electrum, you give someone your master public key so they can pay you, creating a brand new, 1-time only address

The difference is: with a master public key, the sender can use it to figure out who else paid money to that address, past and future. With stealth addresses, the sender knows only the address they sent to (or maybe not even that... but you could work it out in any case by looking at which block it was confirmed into and how much the transaction was for)

How could the sender figure out who else paid money on that master public key if you created it only for him? The idea would be creating a different mpubkey for each individual.
Of course stealth addresses sound really cool and I hope it gets implemented. Right now the anonymity features of BTC are pretty poor and Gmaxwell seems to agree on this too.

Stealth addresses are usable now.  So are mixers.  What is your problem exactly? 

What are you talking about? Mixers are a bunch of potential scams and honeypots in the making! And what stealth address that are usable now do you mean?

So: bump!

As to mixers, I was referring to coinjoin services, and DIY using altcoins and exchanges.  But yeah you have a good point; exchanges are also potential scams and honeypots.. as indeed are third party mixer services, which also includes "gambling" services (you didn't think that many people really gambled did you?). 

Stealth addresses work already, you just need a way to communicate a nonce to the recipient.  Some wallets (like darkwallet) use op_return, others.. I'm not sure.   

Oh...

To be clear, none of this means that a BIP isn't needed.  The BIP (63) is still needed (and we are still waiting for Peter Todd to publish a donation address so that we can support that effort).

[Nicolas Dorier]

I implemented stealth payment and address into NBitcoin. (.NET library for Bitcoin dev)

For what I have seen, the BIP is just a formalization on paper of what already exist, I'm not sure this BIP is essential at all, just a nice to have.

[dexX7]

I implemented stealth payment and address into NBitcoin. (.NET library for Bitcoin dev)

For what I have seen, the BIP is just a formalization on paper of what already exist, I'm not sure this BIP is essential at all, just a nice to have.

Isn't a written formalization probably always just "nice to have"?

A specification for BIP 63 could serve as starting point for alternative implementations.

But FWIW, since it wasn't mentioned before in this thread:

https://wiki.unsystem.net/en/index.php/DarkWallet/Stealth

[ABISprotocol]

I implemented stealth payment and address into NBitcoin. (.NET library for Bitcoin dev)

For what I have seen, the BIP is just a formalization on paper of what already exist, I'm not sure this BIP is essential at all, just a nice to have.

Isn't a written formalization probably always just "nice to have"?

A specification for BIP 63 could serve as starting point for alternative implementations.

But FWIW, since it wasn't mentioned before in this thread:

https://wiki.unsystem.net/en/index.php/DarkWallet/Stealth

What are your thoughts on why no-one has yet written this up into BIP 63 (though Peter Todd has recently made clear on bitcoin-development mailing list he has no intention of doing it, but indicated someone else should feel free to)?  Again, as per part of my original post, this is one of the reasons that the Electrum wallet developer(s) gave for not finalizing the process of inclusion of stealth address into the wallet - they said they are waiting for BIP 63 to be published (presumably in draft is all it would take).  

[Nicolas Dorier]

Again, as per part of my original post, this is one of the reasons that the Electrum wallet developer(s) gave for not finalizing the process of inclusion of stealth address into the wallet - they said they are waiting for BIP 63 to be published (presumably in draft is all it would take). 

Well, if it blocks adoption, in this case it should be finalized. Genjix started working on that on https://github.com/genjix/bips/blob/master/bip-stealth.mediawiki

Genjix, how can we help pushing BIP63 on what you have done ?

[BitUsher]

Well, if it blocks adoption, in this case it should be finalized. Genjix started working on that on https://github.com/genjix/bips/blob/master/bip-stealth.mediawiki

Genjix, how can we help pushing BIP63 on what you have done ?

I agree that Amir would be the second most appropriate person to pick up on Todd's contribution as Peter has more important priorities now. He has been scarcely heard of lately however. If someone can get ahold of him and see if he has the time I will do my part to help donate money and organize a campaign to fundraise a salary to cover BIP63 being formalized and than tested.

[ABISprotocol]

Well, if it blocks adoption, in this case it should be finalized. Genjix started working on that on https://github.com/genjix/bips/blob/master/bip-stealth.mediawiki

Genjix, how can we help pushing BIP63 on what you have done ?

I agree that Amir would be the second most appropriate person to pick up on Todd's contribution as Peter has more important priorities now. He has been scarcely heard of lately however. If someone can get ahold of him and see if he has the time I will do my part to help donate money and organize a campaign to fundraise a salary to cover BIP63 being formalized and than tested.

I'll post a link to this portion of the discussion to Unsystem mailing list with cc to Amir with a request for a reply from Amir back to this forum.

[BitUsher]

I'll post a link to this portion of the discussion to Unsystem mailing list with cc to Amir with a request for a reply from Amir back to this forum.

Thanks, looks like there is already a post made by someone on the unsystem forum found here-

https://forum.unsystem.net/t/finishing-bip-63-stealth-addresses/546

No responses in 4 days....

but if you can email Amir and show him the links it would be better.

[ABISprotocol]

I'll post a link to this portion of the discussion to Unsystem mailing list with cc to Amir with a request for a reply from Amir back to this forum.

Thanks, looks like there is already a post made by someone on the unsystem forum found here-

https://forum.unsystem.net/t/finishing-bip-63-stealth-addresses/546

No responses in 4 days....

but if you can email Amir and show him the links it would be better.

Done

[ABISprotocol]

Brief update / additional info:

See https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/pull/1129#issuecomment-155680014

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

The funding situation has changed since Peter last spoke. Friendly bump?

[ABISprotocol]

The funding situation has changed since Peter last spoke. Friendly bump?

Suggest that someone connect with evoskuil due to that he has indicated in the recent past that he has BIP 63 on his todo list -- his PGP details are at https://github.com/evoskuil

[Jet Cash]

The timing of anything to do with Bitcoin that includes the word "stealth", seems most unfortunate at the moment.