[RPC] Removal of signmessage and verifymessage #24186

1. 
   NicolasDorier commented at 6:36 am on January 28, 2022: contributor

   Those two features are present for a long in Bitcoin Core, but has been scarcely used over the years.

   However, this is going to change with AOPP who directly link at this code in the protocol’s implementation.

2. NicolasDorier added the label Feature on Jan 28, 2022
3. 
   ghost commented at 11:43 am on January 28, 2022: none

   Bitcoin Core will have better signing of messages once #24058 is merged

   I don’t think there is anything wrong with this feature. If one or more exchanges use it differently users can avoid using those exchanges.

   Signing messages has lot of usecases and sometimes even helps in verification without KYC. I have shared some examples in #10542 (comment)

4. 
   Sjors commented at 12:59 pm on January 28, 2022: member

   NACK. Given the lack of SegWit / Taproot support in this feature, we should not assume the lack of usage is due to a lack of legitimate* interest. Also we can’t measure if it really is used “scarcely”; we could only infer that, indirectly, if for example nobody uses P2PKH addresses anymore.

   That said, we should probably never implement aopp URI support, at least not any VASP specific features of it (and calling external URL’s is also problematic).

   * = for example to verify that a hardware device actually has the private key after you imported an xpub / descriptor.

5. 
   NicolasDorier commented at 1:21 pm on January 28, 2022: contributor

   What about stop supporting the Legacy format after #24058 is merged then? Or deprecating it.
6. 
   Sjors commented at 3:02 pm on January 28, 2022: member

   I think we should maintain that legacy functionality for compatibility with old wallets, but it doesn’t matter in the context of AOPP-style initiatives: they can trivially add BIP-322 support.
7. 
   DennisAMenace commented at 0:21 am on January 29, 2022: none

   We use the feature to sign & verify if someone is an owner of a public address to register nodes. It would be sad if this was removed and not supported any longer.
8. 
   sipa commented at 0:23 am on January 29, 2022: member

   I don’t think we should even be talking about dropping support for these until a replacement exists, works, and is adopted.
9. 
   Gabriel-x42 commented at 0:27 am on January 29, 2022: none

   Dennis is correct, other projects have been using this function quite extensively, x42 Protocol being just one of them.
10. 
    NicolasDorier commented at 2:54 am on January 31, 2022: contributor

    @Sjors technically they can, but the fact that nothing support yet BIP322 will make their adoption way harder.
11. NicolasDorier closed this on Jan 31, 2022

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12. DrahtBot locked this on Jan 31, 2023

Contributors
NicolasDorier ghost Sjors DennisAMenace sipa Gabriel-x42

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Feature