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IMO, bitcoind is a terrible idea. The huge deal-breaking problem with bitcoind is that it provides no way to query for transactions associated with a specific a

IMO, bitcoind is a terrible idea. The huge deal-breaking problem with bitcoind is that it provides no way to query for transactions associated with a specific address unless you import that address into the client and give it the private key. This severely restricts your freedom to do your own wallet management, and compromuses security if you want to have many Bitcoin nodes on many semi-secure servers for redundancy. I personally recommend either SX (see http://github.com/vbuterin/node-sx http://github.com/vbuterin/node-sx for an HTTP pass through server, and I have one running at http://multisig.info:3001 http://multisig.info:3001) or if you are okay with centralization then plain old blockchain.info.

nly 13y ago
> The huge deal-breaking problem with bitcoind is that it provides no way to query for transactions associated with a specific address unless you import that address into the client and give it the private key. The reason bitcoind doesn't provide the feature you're after is because it's not actually possible to tie an address to a comprehensive set of transactions. Addresses are hashes of public keys... public keys which may or may not have been used in isolation, or in one of several common conventions, to make a transaction. Only a particular implementation programmed to parse a predetermined set of transaction script types can actually determine what subset of transaction outputs are spendable, and what consistutes your wallets balance. The protocol itself has no concept of wallets or balances
- makomk 13y ago
  That's not a problem in practice; if you give someone an address and they use it to pay with any conforming client, the resulting transaction will conform to one predictable, easily parsed format. Yes, there are numerous other transaction types possible with the same underlying public key, but they are represented by different addresses in all cases.
- wmf 13y ago
  I don't understand how this problem might manifest in the real world. Can you give any examples of transactions that could not be recognized without the associated private key?
- vbuterin 13y ago
  That sounds like one of those "serious in theory, trivial in practice" problems. Like it or not, there ARE only 3 types of standard transactions, and even the network-level protocol recognizes this. Each of them has a specific address convention.

nly 13y ago

> The huge deal-breaking problem with bitcoind is that it provides no way to query for transactions associated with a specific address unless you import that address into the client and give it the private key. The reason bitcoind doesn't provide the feature you're after is because it's not actually possible to tie an address to a comprehensive set of transactions. Addresses are hashes of public keys... public keys which may or may not have been used in isolation, or in one of several common conventions, to make a transaction. Only a particular implementation programmed to parse a predetermined set of transaction script types can actually determine what subset of transaction outputs are spendable, and what consistutes your wallets balance. The protocol itself has no concept of wallets or balances

makomk 13y ago
That's not a problem in practice; if you give someone an address and they use it to pay with any conforming client, the resulting transaction will conform to one predictable, easily parsed format. Yes, there are numerous other transaction types possible with the same underlying public key, but they are represented by different addresses in all cases.
wmf 13y ago
I don't understand how this problem might manifest in the real world. Can you give any examples of transactions that could not be recognized without the associated private key?
vbuterin 13y ago
That sounds like one of those "serious in theory, trivial in practice" problems. Like it or not, there ARE only 3 types of standard transactions, and even the network-level protocol recognizes this. Each of them has a specific address convention.