Paymail
Paymail is a collection of protocols for BSV wallets that allow for a set of simplified user experiences to be delivered across all wallets in the ecosystem.
No more complicated
17Dx2iAnGWPJCdqVvRFr45vL9YvT86TDsn addresses!
Simple payment handles like
<alias>@<domain>.<tld>
The Goals
The goals of the Paymail protocol are:
User-friendly payment destinations through memorable handles
Automatic service discovery/location
Request and response authentication
Permission-less implementation
PKI infrastructure
Security and policy management
Self-hosted or delegated to a managed service
Cross-wallet exchange of single-use transaction output scripts of any construction
Capability extensibility and discovery
bsvalias
The family of related protocols are collectively referred to as the bsvalias protocols. At the time of writing, these include:
(BRFC) BSV Request-For-Comments Specifications
- Describes functionality across the ecosystem. Anyone is free to propose anything with no central authority determining new standards. Instead support is expressed through implementation.
Service Discovery
- Service discovery consists of two phases. First is 'Host Discovery' which is a DNS-based lookup of the responsible host for a given Paymail alias. Then 'Capability Discovery' provides the capabilities supported by a given Paymail service instance.
(PKI) Public Key Infrastructure
- Allows for the creation of simple 'handles' such as Satoshi@ instead of using long and easily mistaken public addresses.
Payment Addressing
- Enables a wallet to discover the preferred BSV output script of a receiver using their Paymail handle.
Paymail
Paymail is a collection of protocols for BSV wallets which enables parties to identify and exchange messages with each other securely. Paymail allows for the interoperability of identity, service discovery, and feature negotiation. Paymail is confidential and necessitates mutual authentication in any message exchange. Paymail includes the following protocols:
Service Discovery
- Service discovery consists of two phases. First is Host Discovery which is a DNS based lookup of the responsible host for a given Paymail alias. Then Capability Discovery provides the capabilities supported by a given Paymail service instance.
(PKI) Public Key Infrastructure
- Allows for the creation of simple “handles” such as Satoshi@ instead of using long and easily mistaken Public Addresses.
Basic Address Resolution from the Payment Addressing protocol group
- Enables a wallet to discover the preferred BSV output script of a receiver using their Paymail handle.
The Paymail brand is reserved for products and services that, at a minimum, implement each of the above.
Extension Protocols
As defined in the BRFC Specifications, anybody can propose an extension to the bsvalias and Paymail protocols, and as per the Capability Discovery section of the Service Discovery protocol, implementations can declare support for extensions to allow for cross-wallet processes. Extension protocols are the collection of protocols not contained within the core Paymail set defined above, but that are fully compatible with bsvalias protocols and Paymail implementations.
