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Update BIP 21 with information about more modern usage of it #1555

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Update BIP 21 with information about more modern usage of it #1555

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Commits on May 28, 2024

  1. Update to include newer address types 

    Added bech32 and bech32m address types to reflect the newer SegWit and Taproot addresses.

Co-Authored-By: Reese Russell <reese.russell@ymail.com>
    @dplusplus1024 @russeree @TheBlueMatt
    2 people authored and TheBlueMatt committed May 28, 2024
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  2. Update BIP 21 with information about more modern usage of it 

    As Bitcoin has grown, the introduction of new address formats
describing new forms of payment instructions has become
increasingly fraught with compatibility issues. Not only does there
exist traditional on-chain addresses, but some recipients wish to
receive Lightning (when the sender supports it) or newer formats
such as Silent Payments.

This has led to increasing use of the BIP 21 query parameters to
encode further optional payment instructions.

Looking forward, as new payment instructions get adopted, it makes
much more sense to include them in query parameters rather than
replace the existing address field, ensuring compatibility with
senders and recipients who may or may not be upgraded to support
all the latest payment instructions.

This updates BIP 21 to suggest that future address formats do this.

Further, it updates BIP 21 to allow an empty bitcoin address in
cases where new payment instructions have moved to becoming
mandatory. This isn't a backwards-incompatible change any more than
switching to a new address format is, so doesn't impact existing
BIP 21 implementations in a new way, however provides a nice
conclusion to the query-parameter-based upgrade path - once a form
of payment instructions has broad adoption, senders can simply drop
the existing address field, keeping their existing query parameter
encoding, rather than replace the existing address field. It also
addresses the question of what to do if a wallet no longer wishes
to receive some legacy on-chain address, but has multiple payment
instruction formats that they wish to include - deciding which one
to place in the address field would be a difficult task.
    @TheBlueMatt
    TheBlueMatt committed May 28, 2024
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