Bitcoinjs-lib: Generalizable serialization format

[dcousens]

Related to https://github.com/bitcoinjs/bitcoinjs-lib/pull/428, would make patching in alternate crypto currencies much simpler.
Could potentially allow for stricter and more deterministic type checking.

I don't want to over-generalize though, and if this was to be done, it'd definitely be implemented/tested through an external module, not in bitcoinjs-lib.

edit: Should also support encoding of valueBuffer natively

• Would also rename internal variables more consistently (aka #622)

[jprichardson]

I'm definitely in favor of this and more than happy to take the lead on this. This is something that I definitely need.

[dcousens]

@jprichardson taking your time on this one? :laughing:
Going to un-assign for now

[dcousens]

Wants https://github.com/varstruct/varstruct/pull/32

[dcousens]

Bump to 5.0.0?
I don't see anything easy to do here that hasn't already been done.

[dcousens]

Moved to 5.0.0

[junderw]

Moving to 6.0.0 ...

[brandoncurtis]

The workflow of using bitcoinjs-lib for multiple coins with network parameters provided by something like https://github.com/cryptocoinjs/coininfo is quite a nice one. This improvement would enable that workflow for coins such as Decred, Zcash (https://github.com/bitcoinjs/bitcoinjs-lib/issues/865), and many more.

[jprichardson]

yes, I'd love this. Exodus would be willing to fund the work here for this effort.

[junderw]

tbh, I'm sort of at a loss on how to move forward on this.

Would be nice if we could get a laundry list going.