Current progress on private Bitcoin transactions:
1. Silent Payments:
- Silent Payments, a concept similar to BIP47, enhances privacy in Bitcoin transactions by allowing users to create reusable payment codes.
- These payment codes can be tweaked by others to create unique public addresses, known only to the sender and receiver.
- Ruben Somsen, who suggested Silent Payments, is a notable figure in the Bitcoin community. He emphasizes that this approach eliminates the data usage tradeoff associated with BIP47, reducing the load on operators with full nodes.
- The first silent payment transaction was initiated on the Bitcoin testnet, Signet, in May 2022
2. BIP-324:
- BIP-324 aims to add HTTPS-like encryption to Bitcoin, improving the security and privacy of transactions.
- It helps prevent private metadata from leaking and allows for the verification that no malicious man-in-the-middle attacks are occurring during transactions.
- The introduction of BIP-324 would mean that session IDs used in transactions could help identify and prevent attacks, enhancing overall security and privacy https://protos.com/bip-324-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-bitcoin-proposal/
3. BIP 157/158 - Client-Side Block Filtering:
- These BIPs introduce client-side block filtering to enhance privacy on the Bitcoin network.
- They allow clients to specify the types of transactions they’re interested in, reducing the amount of data received and enhancing privacy.
- This approach improves privacy by allowing users to selectively retrieve only the transactions relevant to them https://www.doubloin.com/learn/bitcoin-bip-privacy-improvements
4. Schnorr Signatures:
- Although not specified by a BIP number in the sources, Schnorr Signatures represent an important advancement in Bitcoin privacy.
- They allow the aggregation of multiple signatures into a single signature, making it harder for observers to determine individual participants in a transaction.
- This method enhances privacy by obfuscating the link between addresses and transactions https://www.doubloin.com/learn/bitcoin-bip-privacy-improvements
