Ferrying some discussions over from the GitHub thread.
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axic asked
Why is it preferable to have a new invented language and not some binary format, which is easier to parse (CBOR or even ERC-712)?
Is the only reason because the signed message will be “readily” displayed in wallets without implementing support for it? If so, I think hardware wallets may be a big exception to that where some other more easily parsable format is more likely to gain support.
wyc responded
Hi axic, thanks for your concern. That is indeed the main reason, so that applications may adopt this specification without full buy-in from wallet vendors or significant degradation of their user experiences today. In our proposal response to the RFP, we actually specified EIP-712 as the signing format, but found the user experience across many wallets to be much worse than using EIP-191. Formats like CBOR, EIP-712, protobuf, etc. indeed specify structuring for data, but hardware wallets have spotty support for presentation of EIP-712 requests to the users already (please see ongoing issues Ledger/Trezor). We believe that if adoption of this specification relies on all wallet vendors upgrading how they do signing first, it is far less likely to see success. While pure technical merit is important to consider, adoption depends far more on talking to downstream users and understanding their concerns, what they are likely to truly adopt, etc. We have completed over 30 interviews towards this conclusion. We welcome anyone to let us know of any further user research in support or incongruent with this claim. Hope that helps!
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awoie asked
Since this is still a draft, it is feels a bit weird that folks have already approved this. wyc Is this going to be merged once all issues in the community calls get addressed?
wyc responded
awoie the PR is indeed in draft state, and therefore can’t be merged right now. I appreciate everyone who signaled their support for it so far! We will discuss pretty important matters in the public community calls and attempt full resolution of any concerns prior to merge, but also we are on a timeline for delivery so this must be balanced too.
Full details: login.xyz
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