Author: Thomas Hartman 2020-08-17 19:48:27
Published on: 2020-08-17T19:48:27+00:00
In a recent bitcoin-dev email conversation, Taproot MAST was suggested as a solution to enable a difficulty futures instrument. A difficulty futures instrument is possible with the current script and op_diff, and with taproot and op_diff, it may even be economical. However, to do this on-chain, there needs to be a mechanism for selling such an instrument in a trustless way. One suggestion is for Alice and Bob to collaborate to create partial versions of a difficulty future funded by Bob, spendable by Alice in 1000 blocks, and a 17.4 sat payment from Alice to Bob, spendable by Bob immediately. The use of a hash lock on the payment, with a preimage secret generated by Bob, could be used to accomplish this. When Bob unlocks and broadcasts the payment, this reveals the preimage, and with the preimage Alice can unlock and broadcast the difficulty future funded by Bob. The goal is to eventually have this implemented with lightning and eventually HFT, but first things first.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T15:10:49.333442+00:00