Bitcoin Covenants Part | Crypto

OP_CSFS authenticates signatures over arbitrary data. OP_CAT concatenates stack values into a single message. Together, they let Bitcoin scripts verify transaction structure at spend time, without pre-signed key management or new consensus rules beyond the two opcodes themselves. This is Part 4 in the technical article series about Bitcoin covenants by Cointelegraph Research. To read the previous article, click here.  The following opcodes do not independently implement full covenant functionality. Instead, they are building blocks for constructing covenants when combined with other opcodes or script elements. OP_CSFS is a proposed opcode that would allow Bitcoin script to verify signatures over arbitrary messages supplied on the stack. It is different from OP_CHECKSIG, which verifies signatures over the spending transaction according to the active SIGHASH mode. By enabling signature verification for data other than the serialized transaction details, OP_CSFS enables a broader class of constructions, includin...

A single missing feature in Bitcoin Script has spawned twelve competing proposals. Cointelegraph Research gives an overview. Recently, the concept of so-called covenants has received renewed attention as Bitcoin development and protocol discussions underwent a renaissance. Covenants could enable and facilitate a wide range of applications, including new trustless and scalable layer 2s, fully non-custodial vaults with more complex spending logic, and more efficient payment channels. However, most paths to implementing this functionality require a soft fork of Bitcoin's consensus rules, a process that would likely spark debate within the community. With the recent diversification of consensus clients into Core and Knots nodes, reaching agreement on such a change has become less likely. In spite of recently pushing for a soft-fork of their own, namely BIP-110, the Knots side tends to advocate for protocol ossification and appears less supportive of facilitating scaling solutions on the base layer. The recent con...