What We Know So Far About Silent Payments?
A Step Towards Enhanced Transaction Privacy in Bitcoin
Bitcoin Silent Payments, also known as BIP3521, is a proposed improvement to Bitcoin’s payment system that has been gaining traction for its potential to bolster transaction privacy in Layer 1.
In simple terms, Silent Payments enables users to:
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Generate a single, reusable static address for receiving payments, as a business this is a game changer since it make it possible to proceed with the proper financial operational security (OpSec).
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Send and receive bitcoins without disclosing transaction details to third parties, such as the person or business you pay to, cybercriminals and chain analysis companies that sell that data to anyone willing to pay for it, that will include cybercriminals or simply; if you are a business; your competitors… When you use Silent Payments, only the sender and the receiver can connect it checking the on chain activity.
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Without Silent Payments, if you are a non profit organization, public fund raiser, independent journalist, or business you needed support to setup a proper infrastructure to handle the donations or payments in a private manner. With Silent Payments, you post in your web site a single address in text format or as a QR code to receive donations or payments for goods, that simple.
Can I Use Silent Payments Already?
Yes, but it is currently only available through select wallets that have implemented the feature. Users must have compatible wallets and ensure that both parties involved in the transaction have Silent Payments enabled. Currently, leading wallets like Blue Wallet, and others like Cake Wallet and BitBox has adopted the feature. It's essential to verify compatibility before making transactions.
Current wallets known to support it as of writing this article:
- BlueWallet -- Only for sending
- Cake Wallet -- Send, receive, Privacy Preserving Scanning
- Silentium -- Proof of concept, good for testing
- BitBox -- Only for sending
Summarizing:
PROS:
- Enhanced Privacy
- Increased Security
- Improved User Experience
- Cheap and seamless implementation for non profit organization, fund raisers and businesses alike.
CONS:
- None
Final Thoughts
As Bitcoin continues to evolve, Silent Payments will play a significant role in enhancing transaction privacy and security. The potential benefits are undeniable and substantial.
In the near future, we can expect wider adoption and implementation of Silent Payments as more wallets and exchanges embrace this groundbreaking feature. Looking forward to see Phoenix, Sparrow, Ashigaru2 and Electrum adoption.
I will suggest all of us start contacting in all social networks the wallets we us and encourage them to implement Silent Payments
Here the contact info for some of them:
- Phoenix: https://twitter.com/PhoenixWallet
- Ashigaru: contact@ashigaru.rs (if you want a response, send your email signed with PGP)
- Sparrow Wallet: https://twitter.com/SparrowWallet, https://t.me/SparrowWallet
- Electrum: https://twitter.com/ElectrumWallet
Footnotes
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Here the link to the BIP352: https://bips.dev/352/ ↩
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Ashigaru is a fork of Samurai Wallet performed by anonymous developers (IMO, all Bitcoin related development should be anonymous, to protect the project from nefarious players, unfortunately, most developers in the arena choose to be “public” figures, hence, becoming a target of current and potential Bitcoin enemies and a weak link for the ecosystem) Ashigaru in Japanese means “light feet” (translated as foot soldiers or peasants) ↩