On the experiment of the Bitcoin Contracting Primitives WG and marking this community process "up for grabs"

Summary:

Last year, the failure of the CTV speedy trial activation and discussions about covenant proposals prompted the introduction of a new community process to specify covenants. The goals of this process were to build a consistent framework to evaluate covenant proposals, explore common grounds between proposals, open up the consensus changes development process beyond Bitcoin Core, and maintain a high-quality technical archive. This effort aimed to address issues in consensus development changes highlighted by Jeremy Rubin, such as the lack of a codified checklist for consensus changes and the distinction between Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin itself.Various initiatives were undertaken during this period, including the bitcoin-inquisition fork and the careful archiving of all covenant proposals under the Optech umbrella. Additionally, the Bitcoin Contracting Primitives Working Group was established to document and archive various primitives and protocols related to advanced contracts, such as payment pools, vaults, drivechains, and trust-minimized mining pool payouts. The working group held monthly meetings with over 20 individual attendees representing different parts of the community. In-depth discussions took place on topics like "merkelized all the things" and "payment pools for miners payoffs. "While the initial experiment showed promise, the author of the post decided not to actively pursue the process further due to other commitments, particularly in Lightning development. The author expressed the belief that ensuring the smooth operation and scalability of the Lightning Network is more critical for Bitcoin's survival than extended covenant capabilities. However, the author encouraged others working on covenant changes proposals to continue their efforts, emphasizing the positive impact of soft forks like Taproot and Schnorr on self-custody solutions.Moving forward, the author plans to focus on pure research and development work on CoinPool, exploring better solutions for interactivity issues and mass-compression of withdrawals. They also mentioned the possibility of submitting an in-depth security review of consensus changes under pseudonyms. The author acknowledged that they may have overpromised with the kickstart of the new process but highlighted the value of the working group sessions and the technical interests expressed by participants.The author believes that Bitcoin has compelling technical proposals to advance the capabilities of Bitcoin Script today. However, they argue that what is lacking is a small crowd of technical historians and archivists to assess, collect, and preserve consensus changes proposals, as well as quality assurance developers to ensure thorough testing before deployment. The author invited others to take on the maintenance and nurturing of the Bitcoin Contracting Primitives WG or collaborate with Optech on industry-wise workshops on covenants.In conclusion, the author acknowledged their personal bias towards Lightning development but expressed their belief in the potential of the community to drive forward technical advancements for Bitcoin. They encouraged individuals with proof-of-work and long-term commitment to reach out to continue the work on consensus changes.

Updated on: 2023-07-22T02:06:21.701856+00:00