A prominent group of Bitcoin developers has unveiled a potential breakthrough for the Bitcoin blockchain.
The team, consisting of top developers from various teams, has outlined a method to introduce "covenants," a type of programming that could unlock crucial functionalities such as advanced wallet and vault features, and more efficient Layer-2 protocols. This could expand Bitcoin's capabilities, making it more programmable while avoiding the need for a soft fork, a notoriously difficult upgrade that requires a consensus for changes to Bitcoin’s core code.
Figure from the just-published paper (Heilman, Kolobov, Levy, Poelstra)
The announcement was made public on Thursday in a research paper titled "ColliderScript: Covenants in Bitcoin via 160-bit hash collisions." This new technique offers an alternative to previously proposed methods that would have required a soft fork, such as the OP_CTV and OP_CAT proposals. The team believes this innovation could enable Bitcoin to compete with Ethereum in terms of programmability, but with Bitcoin’s unique security advantages.
Led by Ethan Heilman, one of the authors behind the OP_CAT proposal, the group also includes Victor Kobolov and Avihu Levy from StarkWare, and Andrew Poelstra, a senior Bitcoin developer from Blockstream. According to the paper, covenants could now be feasible without needing to modify Bitcoin’s underlying software. However, the researchers note that while the solution is computationally intensive, it holds great potential for optimization.
Robin Linus, a Bitcoin developer known for his BitVM project, expressed mixed feelings about the paper, describing it as "not really practical" in its current form but praising the underlying idea. Linus estimates that executing such a covenant could cost upwards of $10 million, yet he believes the concept is "ingenious" and hopes others will refine it to make it more practical for widespread use.
The paper’s findings highlight a significant shift in how covenants could be implemented on Bitcoin, offering new possibilities without the need for controversial changes to the blockchain’s fundamental code.
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