Crypto glossary
Silent payments (BIP-352)
Silent payments (BIP-352) give a Bitcoin user one reusable static address while each payer creates a unique on-chain output only the recipient can detect.
Normally, reusing a Bitcoin address links all payments to it publicly, so privacy-conscious users hand out a new address every time. Silent payments, specified in BIP-352, solve this with a single published address, starting with sp1, from which senders derive a fresh Taproot output for each payment using a Diffie-Hellman key exchange between the sender's input keys and the recipient's public keys.
Outside observers see only ordinary Taproot transactions with no visible link to the published address. The recipient scans the blockchain to find outputs that belong to them. Donation pages, content creators and anyone who wants to post a single address publicly benefit most, and support has been added to a growing number of wallets.
The cost falls on the receiver: scanning requires checking every eligible transaction, which is heavy for light clients and mobile wallets without help from indexing servers. Senders need wallets that support the scheme. Silent payments protect recipients' privacy but do not hide the sender's inputs, so they complement, rather than replace, other privacy practices.
Example
A journalist publishes one silent payment address on their website; hundreds of supporters donate to it, yet on-chain each gift lands at a different address that nobody can tie to the journalist.