Closed sondreb closed 5 years ago
A package that supports alternative networks is now published under the name "bip38-network": https://www.npmjs.com/package/bip38-network
The package will be unpublished if and when this PR is accepted and published to bip38, but if anyone else needs to use bip38 for other networks than Bitcoin, feel free to try it out.
I think the reasoning behind being Bitcoin only was because the BIP consistently refers to "Bitcoin Addresses" etc. explicitly stating "Bitcoin" before any sort of noun, and therefore was taken as "BIP38 is a Bitcoin protocol unlike BIP44 etc. which make mentions of using it for other altcoins"
That being said, this BIP was originally drafted in late 2013, when the number of altcoins was less than 10 or so... so in this context it could be reasonable to assume that had this BIP been written later they might have made more concessions for altcoins.
I would be hesitant to merge these changes for only one reason: there is no mention in the BIP of what to do with alternative network parameters.
Your pull request makes some logical assumptions, but a small difference in "standards" can cause people to lose access to funds unless they go out and grab a crypto expert. (though many will just assume they self-goxxed and give up)
So my recommendation would be to create a standard somewhere (SLIP, BIP, LIP, or whatever you want to call it for your coin / organization) that specifies in exact terms what to do and how network parameters are used explicitly.
Or propose a modification to the BIP38 draft (remember, it's a draft)
However, I doubt a modification would be accepted, as it seems unanimously discouraged for implementation. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/wiki/Comments:BIP-0038
That being said, this pull request is not consistent with the standard (while it is a good argument that it is a logical extension) so I will reject this PR.
You are free to maintain your bip38-network fork, create a new standard document for the protocol, etc. and if you have any questions or want to seek advice down the road feel free to ask on our channels.
Closes #20
Test result:![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/309938/52677791-9c137500-2f2f-11e9-8e10-dafad0889493.png)