Blocktrades Shoots Down Wallet Addresses

In the core developer meeting today, the team discuss the "Wallet Address" feature, sometimes called "Light Accounts."

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In a nutshell, the change would be to allow someone to hold Hive assets on an unnamed account, using just a public/private key.

During the discussion, @blocktrades narrows down the exact advantage: to save 3.000 HIVE account creation fee.

I agree with @blocktrades, that if this was the only reason to implement wallet addresses, it's not enough of a reason. As @gtg points out, the account creation fee is less than most blockchains demand merely for transacting on their blockchain.

The idea that "normal blockchains do it {{this}} way, so we don't need to do {{that}} way" is fine, as an argument if it differentiates Hive in a good way. I'm not convinced this is a good differentiation.

I think wallet addresses would be a good idea for Hive to implement someday. It would enable investors the ability to generate a wallet address completely off-line, then print their credentials, like they can on a normal blockchain. It enables real cold wallets.

A potential investor might glance at Hive and dismiss it because, "Oh, I can't withdraw because I need an account," and move on. It's not about the fee. It's about the hassle and getting potential investors to wrap their heads around the requirements among the other 10,000 crypto projects. Having wallet addresses would make it possible to have a simple wallet app dedicated to just storing assets.

Ideally: apt-get install hive-wallet or brew install hive-wallet

So while I agree that avoiding the account creation fee in and of itself is not a compelling reason, being able to treat Hive like a normal blockchain is.

Also see:

• Our Plan for Onboarding the Masses
• "Light Account" is a dumb name