BIP 70 / 71 / 72 (Payment Protocol) — Glossary

TERM_DEF // UPGRADES_BIPS / BIP_70_71_72_PAYMENT_PROTOCOL

BIP 70 / 71
/ 72 (PAYMENT PROTOCOL)

BIP 70 / 71 / 72 (Payment Protocol). A merchant-side payment-request protocol; mostly deprecated due to centralization concerns.

This page sits in the Upgrades & BIPs section — The proposal process and the major upgrades that shaped Bitcoin. Read on for what it is, why it exists, how it works under the hood, and what to watch out for.

WHAT_BIP_70_71_72_PAYMENT_PROTOCOL_IS

BIP 70 / 71 / 72 (Payment Protocol) — at a glance

UPGRADES

BIP 70 is a proposal in the Wallet UX family, first published in 2013 with status rejected. A merchant-side payment-request protocol; mostly deprecated due to centralization concerns. Its technical mechanism: merchant signs a PaymentRequest protobuf with X.509 cert; wallet pays via PaymentACK. deprecated — fingerprint, complexity, and Lightning made BIP-21 + invoices sufficient

Why it exists

DESIGN

BIP 70 / 71 / 72 (Payment Protocol) exists to solve a specific problem: a signed payment-request envelope between merchant and customer. Without a written, numbered spec, every wallet and node implementer would interpret the requirement differently — and Bitcoin's value depends on every implementation agreeing exactly. BIP-70 is the single source of truth for this concern, so any new client built today can match the behaviour of every client built since 2013.

HOW_IT_WORKS

Mechanism

HOW IT WORKS

Mechanically, BIP-70 merchant signs a PaymentRequest protobuf with X.509 cert; wallet pays via PaymentACK. Adoption today: deprecated — fingerprint, complexity, and Lightning made BIP-21 + invoices sufficient.

1. Author drafts BIP-70 against the BIP-2 template — abstract, motivation, specification, rationale. 2. The text + a reference implementation are posted on the bitcoin-dev list and as a PR to bitcoin/bips. 3. Reviewers tear it apart: ambiguities, security concerns, edge cases, interaction with prior BIPs. 4. Once stable, the BIP editor merges it; it gets a number (BIP-70) and the status "draft" or "proposed". 5. Implementations land in Bitcoin Core / wallets / other clients. For consensus changes: activation parameters chosen. 6. After deployment + adoption, BIP-70 is promoted to "final"; deprecated proposals get "replaced" or "withdrawn".

WORKED_EXAMPLE

BIP-70 — quick reference card

EXAMPLE

BIP number : 70 Title : BIP 70 / 71 / 72 (Payment Protocol) Area : Wallet UX First published: 2013 Status : rejected Fork class : no Motivation : a signed payment-request envelope between merchant and customer. Mechanism : merchant signs a PaymentRequest protobuf with X.509 cert; wallet pays via PaymentACK. Where it shows up : deprecated — fingerprint, complexity, and Lightning made BIP-21 + invoices sufficient. Read the spec : https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0070.mediawiki

KEY_PROPERTIES

OPT-IN

No authority can force a BIP on anyone. Adoption depends entirely on whether the change is genuinely useful.

NUMBERED

Stable numeric reference — BIP-70 means the same thing across every wallet, miner, and node that has read this spec.

NON-CONSENSUS

BIP-70 is not a consensus rule — clients can implement it without coordinating with the network at large.

SUPERSEDED

BIP-70 is no longer active — either replaced by a later BIP or rejected after review.

COMMON_PITFALLS

Things that catch people out

PITFALLS

BIP-70 is no longer active. If you read it in a tutorial, double-check whether the actual current spec is a later BIP.
Don't confuse "draft" / "proposed" / "final" status — read the BIP header before relying on it in production.
The BIP number is just an editorial counter — it doesn't imply correctness or stability. Always cross-reference with the latest bitcoin/bips repo.

RELATED_CONCEPTS

Other terms from Upgrades & BIPs — click any to read its page:

TERMINOLOGY_INDEX

TERMINOLOGY

BIP 70 / 71 / 72 (Payment Protocol)

A merchant-side payment-request protocol; mostly deprecated due to centralization concerns.

Segregated Witness (SegWit, BIP 141)

The 2017 upgrade separating witness-data/">witness data, fixing tx malleability, and introducing weight units.

Taproot (BIP 341)

The 2021 upgrade introducing key-aggregable schnorr-signatures/">Schnorr signatures and Merkleized script trees.

Tapscript (BIP 342)

Script-language updates accompanying Taproot — new opcodes, removed limits.

Schnorr (BIP 340)

The Schnorr signature spec adopted by Taproot.

BIP Process

The community workflow for proposing, discussing, and tracking changes to Bitcoin.

Soft Fork Activation

The mechanism (versionbits, MASF, UASF, Speedy Trial) by which soft forks turn on.

MASF (Miner-Activated Soft Fork)

Activation triggered by miner signaling in block versions.