Blockchain payment toolkit makes Bitcoin more scalable
The toolkit was developed by the Bitcoin SV Infrastructure Team and includes several elements that deliver the Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) model as described in the original Bitcoin white paper. The LiteClient Toolbox (LCT) comprises a suite of modular components that interact with the BSV blockchain in a scalable and efficient way. These components are reference implementations of modules that implement Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) as described in the Bitcoin white paper.
Earlier implementations of ‘light client’ software solutions relied heavily on bloom filters to obtain transactions relevant to the user from fully indexing nodes. This legacy implementation departs significantly from the network user solution described in the Bitcoin white paper, which sees senders connecting to receivers and sending them a payment directly.
This original SPV design is enabled by the LiteClient Toolbox and means users do not have to download every single transaction on the BSV network if they only want to receive or send transactions. Instead, they need only to keep and maintain an up-to-date copy of the longest chain of block headers and use existing communication protocols to validate transactions against a Merkle proof supplied by full nodes.
The BSV blockchain, says the organization, is the only public blockchain capable of scaling to meet global demands while delivering high data throughput, low transaction fees and support for complex smart contracts. As BSV’s adoption and blockchain size continue to grow, the adoption of LiteClient toolset implementations will be crucial to ensure that users are able to easily interact with the blockchain without running full nodes.
“Bitcoin was designed from the start in a maximally scalable way,” says Bitcoin Association Director of Engineering Jad Wahab. “You do not need to run a fully indexing node just to send and receive Bitcoin payments or interact with the blockchain. You just need to store and update the chain of block headers as well direct communications between the parties. The initial phase of the LiteClient programme helps enable direct payments and communications and address the fragility and lack of interoperability with the current infrastructure. If things are built and used properly as designed, then there is no risk of things breaking as adoption and data volume on the Bitcoin SV network continues to grow indefinitely.”
The primary goal of this MVP release is to educate the internal Bitcoin SV ecosystem about the capabilities of the LiteClient toolbox and how these can be applied to various applications. Adoption of these tools, says the organization, will greatly improve interoperability between services running on Bitcoin SV, enabling use cases such as easy, scalable tokens that work with any wallet, payment and state channels, multi-party payments and more.
The LiteClient Toolbox comprises the following core components:
- Wallet – enables key and UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) management.
- Block Headers Client – collects and maintains an up-to-date copy of the longest chain of block headers, which can be used to validate transactions.
- Direct Payment Protocol (DPP) – defines a standard language (via API) for senders and receivers of payments to communicate with each other and the Bitcoin SV network. This includes creating connections to nodes through a node/miner interface and extensions such as the Paymail Server and Peer Channels.
- Direct Payment Protocol Proxy (DP3) – streamlines the payment process further and enables additional features.
- Paymail Server
Any business interacting with the Bitcoin SV blockchain will be able to leverage one or more of the LiteClient Toolbox components, enabling them to fulfil their necessary functionality without the expense of running a full node. Businesses that can adopt LiteClient infrastructure include:
- Wallet providers
- Exchanges that use payment capabilities
- Applications using BSV as a payment method
- Individuals who are interested in peer-to-peer capabilities and want to run their own payment infrastructure
- SME’s who are interested in subsets of BSV blockchain transactions (payments and data) and can leverage this for transaction verification on blockchain.
Bitcoin Association Managing Director Patrick Prinz adds, “We are pleased to announce the launch of the LiteClient Toolbox, which delivers the efficient model of SPV described in Section 8 of the Bitcoin White Paper. In line with BSV’s implementation of the original Bitcoin protocol design, this will finally enable genuine P2P and IP2IP transactions, unlocking a new universe of opportunities. The BSV blockchain continues to scale far beyond the capabilities of other protocols and traditional digital payment networks. We encourage wallet services, exchanges, and other application operators on the BSV network to become familiar with the LiteClient Toolbox and look to implement the components to boost their efficiency and realise Satoshi’s vision of a global, permissionless P2P electronic cash system.”
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