Another "not too technical" resource is the following one:
https://rumble.com/v12kuz7-bitcoin-silent-payments.html
Where I got a very clear overview of this technique. And solved my first thought about this (why it is superior to "xpub-sharing")
Thanks for the link to a video presentation. When I was writing about silent payments, I couldn't find any visual aids that would help me to understand this technology better. Could you briefly tell us about the advantages of silent payments over the common xpub sharing technique?https://rumble.com/v12kuz7-bitcoin-silent-payments.html
Where I got a very clear overview of this technique. And solved my first thought about this (why it is superior to "xpub-sharing")
The irony is strong with this one:
I would call silent payments a steganographic method of hiding information because it allows you to get lost in the crowd merely by making completely normal payments with no specific fingerprint. With silent payments you are hiding in plain sight.The second reflection revolves also around the BIP119 drama. Silent Payments are techniques which don't require any new functions in the bitcoin protocol. It's a very elegant and effective technique to gain privacy from transactions and solve a real problem. What I mean, so much remains to be "discovered" using the current bitcoin protocol, we cannot risk anything implementing a new feature which is secure and scrutinised beyond any reasonable doubt.
It is true, unlike very controversial proposals like covenants, which I personally deem extremely undesirable for bitcoin because they make it less fungible and censorship-resistant, the silent payments technique doesn't require making any changes on a protocol level.