BIP 352 — Silent Payments

BIP 352 (Silent Payments) defines static payment addresses (sp1...) from which each sender derives a unique on-chain Taproot address using a Diffie-Hellman computation between sender and recipient keys — no address reuse, no interaction, and no on-chain notification transaction. The cost falls on the recipient, who must scan blocks to detect payments. Repository status: Complete; wallet support is growing but not universal.

Debate relevance: A staple of privacy debates: donation addresses, address-reuse criticism, and 'does privacy require a protocol change' arguments (it does not — silent payments need no consensus change). Common misstatements: "Silent payments required a soft fork" — they are built on existing consensus rules. Conflating them with BIP 47, which requires notification transactions. "Complete means every wallet supports it" — Complete is a specification status; adoption is separate, and light-client scanning remains a practical challenge.