editorial

monero/caip10.md

@@ -15,13 +15,31 @@ requires: ["CAIP-10"]
 
 ## Rationale
 
-CAIP-10 defines a way to identify an account in a blockchain. Monero chains use UTXO model and [Monero addresses][] are functionally similar to accounts in other namespaces.
+CAIP-10 defines a common URI scheme for identifying actors in a pseudonymous cryptographic system.
+Monero chains use the UTXO accounting model and [Monero addresses][] are functionally similar to accounts in other UTXO-based namespaces, where CAIP-10 identifiers represent **payee identifiers** (of which a given actor has many and can self-generate arbitrarily more) rather than **actor identifiers**.
 
 ## Semantics
 
-Monero has several types of addresses: [standard address](https://monerodocs.org/public-address/standard-address/), [subaddress](https://monerodocs.org/public-address/subaddress/) and [integrated address](https://monerodocs.org/public-address/integrated-address/). Any address contains network and address type identifiers, public spend key, public view key, a checksum, and may contain additional data depending on the address type. [base58-monero][] encoding is used to encode address into a string.
-
-CAIP-10 "accounts" should not be confused with [Monero accounts][], which are used in Monero wallets for grouping related addresses and transactions.
+Monero wallets can generate and pay out to several different types of payee addresses: 
+1. [standard address](https://monerodocs.org/public-address/standard-address/) for fully-public contexts, 
+1. [subaddress](https://monerodocs.org/public-address/subaddress/) for limiting linkability to a specific interactive context, and 
+1. [integrated address](https://monerodocs.org/public-address/integrated-address/) which encrypt transaction-specific metadata to a shared secret to enable automation and programmable metadata per context. 
+
+Each of these above addresses contains:
+- network identifiers, which map to [CAIP-2][] `chainId`s,
+- address type identifiers encoding which of the above it is,  
+- a public spend key, 
+- a public view key,
+- optionally, additional type-specific data (such as a transaction-bound metadata for an integrated address), and
+- a checksum derived from the above. 
+
+Note that the [base58-monero][] encoding is used to encode address into a string.
+The alphabet is identical to that used by [base58btc-alphabet][], but padding is used to normalize encoded length to multiples of 11 characters.
+Note that decoding base58-monero with a standard base58 library can create breaking inconsistencies between the binary produced and the originally-encoded byte array if such padding was used when encoding.
+Decoding the base58 properly and parsing the address type identifier are required for processing the checksum and thus validating the address.
+
+Monero CAIP-10 URIs should not be referred to as "accounts" to avoid confusion  with "[Monero accounts][]", which is a term of art used in Monero wallet user interfaces for grouping related addresses and transactions into logical units.
+Referring to Monero CAIP-10 URIs as encoding "addresses" or "payees" avoids this confusion, as well as potential false equivalences with namespaces built around atomic-account transaction models, as there is a one-to-many relation of wallets to addresses assumed in the Monero actor model.
 
 ## Syntax
 
@@ -52,18 +70,21 @@ monero:00000000000000000000000000000000:86MD1PNx3vmKUQjLvxNnmUfGQoHXAg8x56Nq97Kr
 
 ## Additional Considerations
 
-In the future new types of Monero addresses will be introduced. They will likely be longer and may exceed the 128 character limit set in [CAIP-10][] specification.
+In the future, new types of Monero addresses will be introduced. 
+They will likely be longer and may exceed the 128 character limit set in the [CAIP-10][] specification.
 
 ## References
 
-- [CAIP-10][]
-- [Monero addresses][]
+- [Address documentation][Monero Addresses] from Monero core developer documentation
+- [Account documentation][Monero Accounts] from Monero core developer documentation
 
 [CAIP-10]: https://github.com/ChainAgnostic/CAIPs/blob/master/CAIPs/caip-10.md
 [Monero addresses]: https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/address.html
 [Monero accounts]: https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/account.html
 [base58-monero]: https://monerodocs.org/cryptography/base58/
 [Monero CAIP-2]: https://github.com/ChainAgnostic/namespaces/blob/main/monero/caip2.md
+[base58btc]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-msporny-base58-02
+[base58btc-alphabet]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-msporny-base58-02#section-21
 
 ## Copyright