Depending on the kind of account (e.g. proxy, multisig) there’s no public keys, but can be represented as “public key”. If we stick to the notion of address ito public key should be okay IMHO. Not a public key but can be unequivocally represented by a bit string of the same size.
Of course, you won’t be able to recover a public key from “pseudo public key addresses” of a signature, this could be a concern. Well, in fact signatures are impossible for such addresses that doesn’t represent a public key.
I would be against just using the public key (or 32-byte AccountId
). The SS58-encoded address also includes a checksum, which has a few nice user-protection properties.
One, it protects users against missed/altered characters. If you miss or change a character in the address, the whole address becomes “wrong” and UIs would reject it as a bad address (go to a UI and try it).
Second, there was a case a while back where someone pasted in an 20-byte Ethereum address and the UI just padded it with 12 bytes of 0s to make it into a Polkadot AccountId
. This was obviously inaccessible.
The encoding with the checksum (besides being a bit shorter and easier on the eyes) also protects users from these mistakes.
Using just JUST ONE WALLET ADDRESS for all parachain if possible PLEASE
No difference prefix please, it is still too complicated
100% support this if possible in technical
This is now in pre-voting [ Wish for change ] Unifying Polkadot Ecosystem Address Format | Polkassembly (Still needs the deposit)
The referenda was approved.
Is there any strategy or timeline for what’s next?
The wish for change successfully passed with overwhelming support and the dApp integration guide is under review. Once the review concludes early next week, we will push it with all the information on how to integrate this change.
more info here: OpenUX Call #7 - 2024-11-28 - Meeting minutes