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CH05::Intro: re-title and re-introduce

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- Retitle from "wallets" to "wallet recovery".  The existing chapter is
  entirely about generating keys in a way that can be recovered after a
  data loss.  I worry that calling this chapter "wallets" results in ignoring
  many other aspects of wallet design, such as how they scan for
  transactions (important for privacy) and how they sign (important for
  security and wallet interoperation).

- Re-introduce the chapter, given the changed name.
This commit is contained in:
David A. Harding 2023-02-13 10:58:18 -10:00
parent 24b31b369e
commit ab30a5f0a2
1 changed files with 15 additions and 14 deletions
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ch05.asciidoc
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[[ch05_wallets]]
== Wallets
== Wallet Recovery
((("wallets", "defined")))The word "wallet" is used to describe a few
different things in bitcoin.
Creating pairs of private and public keys is a crucial part of allowing
Bitcoin wallets to receive and spend bitcoins. But losing access to a
private key can make it impossible for anyone to ever spend the bitcoins
received to the corresponding public key. Wallet and protocol
developers over the years have worked to design systems that allow users
to recover access to their bitcoins after a problem without compromising
security the rest of the time.
At a high level, a wallet is an application that serves as the primary
user interface. The wallet controls access to a user's money, managing
keys and addresses, tracking the balance, and creating and signing
transactions.
More narrowly, from a programmer's perspective, the word "wallet" refers
to the data structure used to store and manage a user's keys.
In this chapter we will look at the second meaning, where wallets are
containers for private keys, usually implemented as structured files or
simple databases.
In this chapter, we'll examine some of the different methods employed by
wallets to prevent the loss of data from becoming a loss of money.
Some solutions have almost no downsides and are universally adopted by
modern wallets. We'll simply recommend those solutions as best
practices. Other solutions have both advantages and disadvantages,
leading different wallet authors to make different tradeoffs.
In those cases, we'll describe the various options available.
=== Wallet Technology Overview