CD199: CRAIG RAW - SILENT PAYMENTS AND SPARROW WALLET

Craig Raw, creator of Sparrow Wallet, joins to discuss silent payments, a new bitcoin address system that eliminates address reuse, removes the gap limit, and aligns privacy with convenience. Craig walks us through the history of bitcoin address derivation from single key to hd wallets to bip 47, then explains how silent payments optimizes everything except scanning cost and how his new server implementation, Frigate, uses gpu acceleration to mitigate that. We discuss the path to adoption including hardware wallet support, public server infrastructure, bip 353 human readable addresses, and the overall vision of upgrading from hd wallets to sp wallets.

Craig on Nostr:  https://primal.net/craigraw
Craig on X: https://x.com/craigraw
Sparrow Wallet: https://sparrowwallet.com
Frigate Repo: https://github.com/sparrowwallet/frigate

EPISODE: 199
BLOCK: 944916
PRICE: 1384 sats per dollar

(00:03:09) Craig Raw of Sparrow Wallet

(00:03:27) Silent Payments: what they are and why they matter

(00:06:01) From single keys to HD wallets: history and limits

(00:11:41) Address reuse in the wild and UX realities

(00:11:50) BIP47 review: pros, cons, and hardware wallet hurdles

(00:15:18) Enter Silent Payments: design tradeoffs and hardware support

(00:19:01) Key benefits: static codes, enforced freshness, no gap limit

(00:21:02) The scanning-cost problem and early client approaches

(00:25:27) Server-side strategy: database tweaks and GPUs

(00:29:15) Why public servers matter and performance breakthroughs

(00:33:37) Frigate with Electrum backends: deployment paths

(00:37:20) Risks with public servers and practical mitigations

(00:43:10) Uncle Jim model and GPU-ready home servers

(00:46:21) GPU backends: CUDA, OpenCL, Metal and real-world nodes

(00:47:34) Running everything on a laptop and pruning considerations

(00:49:11) Human-readable addresses: DNSSEC and BIP353

(00:55:14) What’s needed next: hardware, node vendors, and runners

(00:58:13) PSBT details, DLEQ proofs, and multisig caveats

(01:02:13) Timeline to usable SP wallets and public servers

(01:06:10) Reframing SP as UX: contacts and everyday payments

(01:07:22) Ecosystem fit: who could ship this first

(01:08:31) Wrapping up: calls to action and outlook

(01:10:03) Closing notes: upcoming guests and events