Dynamic Hierarchical Deterministic Key Trees

I've submitted a BIP proposal that solves the issue of needing to predefine HD wallet structures and not being able to arbitrarily nest deeper levels. Comments appreciated.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/242

- Eric

Hi Eric,

Would you please enumerate, or point to, arguments that discourage the use of a key both for signing and for derivation of a deeper level of the hierarchy ?

Tamas Blummer

> On Nov 17, 2015, at 12:40, Eric Lombrozo via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote:
>
> I've submitted a BIP proposal that solves the issue of needing to predefine HD wallet structures and not being able to arbitrarily nest deeper levels. Comments appreciated.
>
> https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/242
>
>
> - Eric
> _______________________________________________
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

Tamas,

You could use a key for both signing and for derivation of a deeper level (and perhaps there are some applications for this, if you think of any please let me know), but the use cases being considered involve generation of signing key sequences from seeds that are easy to backup and easy to share with others to simplify multidevice synchronization, key management, account structures, etc... while also allowing for privacy by making it nontrivial to associate transactions for an account without knowing the seed/chain code.

As such, we generally refer to such sequences by a path to the immediate parent node in the tree and reserve the children themselves for the signing keys.

- Eric

------ Original Message ------ From: "Tamas Blummer" <tamas@bitsofproof•com> To: "Eric Lombrozo" <elombrozo@gmail•com>; "Eric Lombrozo via bitcoin-dev" <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> Sent: 11/17/2015 5:10:17 AM Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Dynamic Hierarchical Deterministic Key Trees

>Hi Eric,
>
>Would you please enumerate, or point to, arguments that discourage the
>use of a key both for signing and for derivation of a deeper level of
>the hierarchy ?
>
>Tamas Blummer
>
>>  On Nov 17, 2015, at 12:40, Eric Lombrozo via bitcoin-dev
>><bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org> wrote:
>>
>>  I've submitted a BIP proposal that solves the issue of needing to
>>predefine HD wallet structures and not being able to arbitrarily nest
>>deeper levels. Comments appreciated.
>>
>>  https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/242
>>
>>
>>  - Eric
>>  _______________________________________________
>>  bitcoin-dev mailing list
>>  bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation•org
>>  https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>