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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Scoresby 13 Oct \ on: My Second Thoughts on Silent Payments bitdevs

Great write up, @deSign_r!

From my understanding, silent payments requires that the user's server is doing a bit more compute. Did you notice this when you were using it on desktop? Or is it the case that using it with sparrow you still needed to connect to a different server for scanning for silent payments?

102 sats \ 3 replies \ @deSign_r OP 13 Oct

yes, true. Sparrow and blindBit both allows entering a birthdate in the wallet settings > advanced. Cake does the same.

The concepts of sync and wallet birth~~day~~ date or block are new in this "silent" space. Once user set up the birthdate or birthblock in the wallet, it literally takes few minutes to sync: meaning the wallet will check for any transaction with addresses derived from the seed phrase.

If a wallet is new, the birthdate or block should be "now" or maybe few days earlier, and reduce the sync for newly created wallets to few seconds.

If this is not done, by the user or automatically, it could take 1h or more to sync the wallet from block 0. That's why I think builders of such tools should consider defaulting the date or bloc to the nearest creation date possible and let the user change it at user discretion. Adding a notice informing that sync time from this block/date could take more than XXminutes to complete.

33 sats \ 2 replies \ @Scoresby 13 Oct

Once synced, it doesn't have to look at any old blocks, though, right? But, I suppose if the user is only occasionally (couple times a year) the sync might take a few minutes every time they open the wallet. That could be challenging for user experience.

102 sats \ 1 reply \ @deSign_r OP 13 Oct

Yes correct, even if opening once a year I think the sync is fast. And all wallets are displaying a progress bar to inform the user sync is happening, usually with a percentage indicator and in the best cases with a stopwatch.

I feel the most challenging UX is due to first use, more than periodic use. Once user know how the sync works its fine, but when it does not, and the birthdate or block is not set, then it can be annoying. Especially when there's no inform telling the user why the wallet is syncing and how long it could take.

Setting up such input should be by default, or it could also be a learning opportunity for the users as part of the onboarding.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 13 Oct

Thanks for the good info here. It will be neat yo see how wallets handle it as more roll out support.