How DigiByte Wallet Privacy Works: BIP157/158 Compact Block Filters
Many so-called light mobile wallets quietly trade away your privacy for convenience. Older designs use Bloom filters, defined in BIP37, or simply ask a server to show transactions for a list of addresses, and either approach hands that server exactly which addresses belong to you, even though your keys and coins remain entirely your own. That is a meaningful privacy leak: whoever operates the server you are syncing against can build a map of your holdings and activity just from watching your sync requests.
DigiByte's wallet instead syncs using BIP157 and BIP158, known as compact block filters. A DigiByte node builds a small, deterministic filter for every block, summarizing everything that block contains. Your wallet downloads these compact filters and checks them locally, on your own device, to decide whether a given block might contain something relevant to your addresses. Only when a filter suggests a match does the wallet request that specific block's full data, and because the filter covers the whole block rather than just your addresses, the node serving it cannot tell which entries in the match were the ones you actually cared about. Your address list never has to leave your device at all. This is the wallet's only sync mode today; the older Bloom-filter path, which did leak address information, has been fully removed.
Combined with optional Dandelion++ transaction routing, which obscures which peer first broadcast your outgoing transaction, DigiByte's wallet is built so that self-custody and privacy reinforce each other rather than trading off against one another. You control your keys, and the way your wallet learns about the chain does not require trusting a server with your financial fingerprint.
Frequently asked questions
- What are BIP157/158 compact block filters?
- A privacy-preserving sync method where a full node builds a small filter summarizing each block, and light wallets check those filters locally to find relevant transactions without ever revealing their addresses to the node.
- How is this different from a bloom-filter wallet?
- Bloom-filter (BIP37) wallets and address-query wallets tell a server which addresses to watch, leaking your holdings. Compact filters let the wallet decide locally, so addresses never leave your device.
- Does the DigiByte wallet still support bloom filters?
- No. The DigiByte wallet's Bloom-filter sync mode has been fully removed; compact block filters are the only sync mode.
- Does compact-filter sync mean I'm trusting a custodian?
- No. The wallet remains fully non-custodial. Compact filters only change how it learns which blocks matter; your keys and coins stay under your control.