From: Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock.name>
To: Tamas Blummer <tamas@bitsofproof.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 04:47:26 -0400
Message-ID: <10282678.x5thQUt8hv@crushinator>
User-Agent: KMail/4.13 (Linux/3.12.13-gentoo; KDE/4.13.0; x86_64; ; )
In-Reply-To: <7A10A6C6-BE84-472B-9205-F5F9E459B5D7@bitsofproof.com>
References: <CAC7yFxSE8-TWPN-kuFiqdPKMDuprbiVJi7-z-ym+AUyA_f-xJw@mail.gmail.com>
	<4586234.JVHRmdZYKl@crushinator>
	<7A10A6C6-BE84-472B-9205-F5F9E459B5D7@bitsofproof.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Cc: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Presenting a BIP for Shamir's Secret
	Sharing of Bitcoin private keys
Precedence: list

On Tuesday, 22 April 2014, at 10:43 am, Tamas Blummer wrote:
> It is not about taste, but the fact that BIPs are used by many chains. 
> Alts are useful for at least for experiments, and I think that the notion of main and testnet is superseeded by a wide choice of chains.

There aren't enough distinct bytes to allow for every altcoin. I believe what they do is their own business and is outside the scope of a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal.

If your argument were valid, then we would also have to apply it to private keys. Why do we bother specifying a separate encoding for Bitcoin testnet private keys? There are so many altcoins, after all.