Covenant: Usually official and binding agreement.
This word has become one of the most charged words in bitcoin space. They are the best thing since the baking slices. They are the most dangerous thing since the corn bomb. They will not do anything to expand bitcoin, but they are elegant.
Everyone has a completely different position towards them. We have a pro -action faction, combat move, and the contradictory faction. What is more than the clay is, it is frankly a very mysterious term in its description of mature and concrete proposals for the protocol that will be classified as an era.
The difference in the difference between the various proposals functions that have been offered is enormous. Some create completely new design spaces for what can be built on the top of Bitcoin, while others do not strictly add any new functions at all, they simply improve things that already can already be largely with a large degree of complexity and public expenditures.
Let's create a new definition for Bitcoin.
Covenant: Any text program that guarantees some, or all the outputs created by the spending of transactions, will have to inputs with the Testament program that suit specific specific criteria so that the spending treatment is valid.
So in less strict phrases, if the Bitcoin text program is currently restricting from A metal currency can be spent by demanding the proof of the mandate, that is when It can be spent, that is, after the timing time has ended, or the pre -competitor can appear to a segmentation, and the text of the covenant is restricted how It can be spent, that is, on, how much, to anyone, etc.
This last part is the essence of what made the covenant such a controversial word. Many people have great reservations about adding a new method to Bitcoins that can weaken self and ensure the restriction of future metal currencies in a similar way. Many people have concerns about this user to harm fungi or the Institute of Control Systems.
I feel it is necessary to point out that both of these two things can be accomplished now, without a text capacity, simply using Multisig. Any authority can refuse to allow the processing of withdrawals from exchanges unless it is 2 out of 2 as this power carries one key. From there, they can simply refuse to sign the transactions that are sent to addresses where they do not carry a required key, and create any blacklist or the white list of the menu they want in an inconsistent and completely far.
However, it is still important for Bitcoin users to understand and understand the difference in strength and flexibility between all the different era proposals currently exist.
There are two main things that the covenants seek to enable to apply restrictions to how Metal currencies are spent, Meditation and Download data forward.
Meditation is the ability to examine different parts of the treatment that is evaluated while trying to spend a specific metal currency. So for example, if you want to restrict a coin so that it must be spent on a specific address, you should be able to compare the title specified in the textual program for the entrances to the address specified in the output of its spending treatment. Absolute symbols that allow meditation are those that give us the ability to compare different parts of spending treatment for the restrictions imposed on the evaluating text program. The more granules that you can get with the argument in relation to certain parts of the treatment you can examine, the more powerful it is.
The front -to -meditation data is related to many ways as a result, allowing you to ensure that some information is done forward and included in every new text program for the era so that it can be used in the following evaluation of the covenant text. This is achieved by using the argument to restrict certain parts of the transaction tightly so that it must include accurate required or not valid data. The more powerful you have, the more flexible data is forward, and the more you can use this data.
This is just a first introduction to a series of articles that will come during the next few weeks that are looking for all the main pledge proposals that are in a mature state, or have received a modern interest, or that it is of conceptually decisive importance enough for developers to agree to its benefit but not yet a concrete design. This will not be 100 % complete, but it will be relatively comprehensive. A few of them are also not accurately covenant, but they are tightly formed with them.
This will include:
- to examine
- Checksgfromstack
- U
- OP_Vaunt
- Check the contract
- cat
- Tweakverify