IP transaction: Difference between revisions
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Change incorrect information about addresses to refer to public keys; also make clear what humans are doing and what software is doing |
add PR number for removing "send to IP address" |
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==Status== | ==Status== | ||
This feature has been removed from Bitcoin Core as-of v0.8.0<ref>[http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9334.0 Remove send to IP address and IP transactions support]</ref> | This feature has been removed from Bitcoin Core as-of v0.8.0<ref>[http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9334.0 Remove send to IP address and IP transactions support] in [https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/1904 PR #1904]</ref>. | ||
==References== | ==References== | ||
Latest revision as of 07:55, 23 October 2019
Sending bitcoins to an IP address was a convenient way of sending bitcoins to a Bitcoin address along with additional information.
- Your client contacts the IP address to find out if they're actually running Bitcoin and accepting IP transactions. If not, no transaction occurs.
- Your additional information ("from", "message", etc.) is exchanged with the server.
- The server generates a brand new Bitcoin public key and sends it to your client.
- Your client sends coins to this public key.
Unfortunately, the implementation provided no authentication, so any "man in the middle" could have intercepted your bitcoins during the transaction. When they see that you're sending a Bitcoin payment by IP address, they pretend to be the actual destination and send back their Bitcoin address. You end up sending bitcoins to the wrong person. It's therefore no longer a good idea to send bitcoins in this way, especially if you're using a proxy.
Status
This feature has been removed from Bitcoin Core as-of v0.8.0[1].