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I want to have something like this in a plaintext e-mail:
Pay directly: bitcoin:addresshere?amount=0.001&label=Blablabla&message=Blablabla
But if I do that, it won't be "clickable", because the standard URL format would be:
Pay directly: bitcoin://addresshere?amount=0.001&label=Blablabla&message=Blablabla
Why does the bitcoin: URL scheme not use the // part? Is it intentional to not be clickable? Or am I wrong in my assumption that e-mail clients will not make it "clickable"?
The Bitcoin URI scheme is defined in BIP21:
Bitcoin URIs follow the general format for URIs as set forth in RFC 3986. The path component consists of a bitcoin address, and the query component provides additional payment options.
You can read through the entire RFC document or the summary on Wikipedia which answers your question:
An optional authority component preceded by two slashes (//), comprising:
- An optional userinfo subcomponent that may consist of a user name and an optional password preceded by a colon (:), followed by an at symbol (@). Use of the format username:password in the userinfo subcomponent is deprecated for security reasons. Applications should not render as clear text any data after the first colon (:) found within a userinfo subcomponent unless the data after the colon is the empty string (indicating no password).
- A host subcomponent, consisting of either a registered name (including but not limited to a hostname), or an IP address. IPv4 addresses must be in dot-decimal notation, and IPv6 addresses must be enclosed in brackets ([]).[24][c]
- An optional port subcomponent preceded by a colon (:).
Conclusion: the Bitcoin URI scheme is RFC-compliant and does not require the optional "authority" component which is what the // deliniates.
Because addresses aren't meant to be clickable. They're too ugly to be featured in proper UX. If they were clickable, then more developers would show them directly to the users. Making them unclickable is a good way to incentivize the URIs to be embedded in buttons.
Plus, clickable URIs are harder to select and copy. We want either "Open In: "Wallet" " or selectable addresses or showing the first few and the last few characters. Clickable URIs don't solve any.
