Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Proposed BIP for OP_CAT

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2023 10:58:07 +0200

> This opcode would be activated via a soft fork by redefining the opcode OP_SUCCESS80.
 
Why OP_SUCCESS80, and not OP_SUCCESS126? When there is some existing opcode, it should be reused. And if OP_RESERVED will ever be re-enabled, I think it should behave in the same way, as in pre-Taproot, so it should "Mark transaction as invalid unless occuring in an unexecuted OP_IF branch". Which means, "<condition> OP_VERIFY" should be equivalent to "<condition> OP_NOTIF OP_RESERVED OP_ENDIF".
 
On 2023-10-21 07:09:13 user Ethan Heilman via bitcoin-dev <[email-masked]> wrote:
Hi everyone, We've posted a draft BIP to propose enabling OP_CAT as Tapscript opcode. https://github.com/EthanHeilman/op_cat_draft/blob/main/cat.mediawiki OP_CAT was available in early versions of Bitcoin. It was disabled as it allowed the construction of a script whose evaluation could create stack elements exponential in the size of the script. This is no longer an issue in the current age as tapscript enforces a maximum stack element size of 520 Bytes. Thanks, Ethan ==Abstract== This BIP defines OP_CAT a new tapscript opcode which allows the concatenation of two values on the stack. This opcode would be activated via a soft fork by redefining the opcode OP_SUCCESS80. When evaluated the OP_CAT instruction: # Pops the top two values off the stack, # concatenate the popped values together, # and then pushes the concatenated value on the top of the stack. OP_CAT fails if there are less than two values on the stack or if a concatenated value would have a combined size of greater than the maximum script element size of 520 Bytes. ==Motivation== Bitcoin tapscript lacks a general purpose way of combining objects on the stack restricting the expressiveness and power of tapscript. For instance this prevents among many other things the ability to construct and evaluate merkle trees and other hashed data structures in tapscript. OP_CAT by adding a general purpose way to concatenate stack values would overcome this limitation and greatly increase the functionality of tapscript. OP_CAT aims to expand the toolbox of the tapscript developer with a simple, modular and useful opcode in the spirit of Unix[1]. To demonstrate the usefulness of OP_CAT below we provide a non-exhaustive list of some usecases that OP_CAT would enable: * Tree Signatures provide a multisignature script whose size can be logarithmic in the number of public keys and can encode spend conditions beyond n-of-m. For instance a transaction less than 1KB in size could support tree signatures with a thousand public keys. This also enables generalized logical spend conditions. [2] * Post-Quantum Lamport Signatures in Bitcoin transactions. Lamport signatures merely requires the ability to hash and concatenate values on the stack. [3] * Non-equivocation contracts [4] in tapscript provide a mechanism to punish equivocation/double spending in Bitcoin payment channels. OP_CAT enables this by enforcing rules on the spending transaction's nonce. The capability is a useful building block for payment channels and other Bitcoin protocols. * Vaults [5] which are a specialized covenant that allows a user to block a malicious party who has compromised the user's secret key from stealing the funds in that output. As shown in A. Poelstra, "CAT and Schnorr Tricks II", 2021, https://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew/blog/cat-and-schnorr-tricks-ii.html OP_CAT is sufficent to build vaults in Bitcoin. * Replicating CheckSigFromStack A. Poelstra, "CAT and Schnorr Tricks I", 2021, https://medium.com/blockstream/cat-and-schnorr-tricks-i-faf1b59bd298 which would allow the creation of simple covenants and other advanced contracts without having to presign spending transactions, possibly reducing complexity and the amount of data that needs to be stored. Originally shown to work with Schnorr signatures, this result has been extended to ECDSA signatures. [6] The opcode OP_CAT was available in early versions of Bitcoin. However OP_CAT was removed because it enabled the construction of a script for which an evaluation could have memory usage exponential in the size of the script. For instance a script which pushed an 1 Byte value on the stack then repeated the opcodes OP_DUP, OP_CAT 40 times would result in a stack value whose size was greater than 1 Terabyte. This is no longer an issue because tapscript enforces a maximum stack element size of 520 Bytes. ==Specification== Implementation if (stack.size() < 2) return set_error(serror, SCRIPT_ERR_INVALID_STACK_OPERATION); valtype vch1 = stacktop(-2); valtype vch2 = stacktop(-1); if (vch1.size() + vch2.size() > MAX_SCRIPT_ELEMENT_SIZE) return set_error(serror, SCRIPT_ERR_INVALID_STACK_OPERATION); valtype vch3; vch3.reserve(vch1.size() + vch2.size()); vch3.insert(vch3.end(), vch1.begin(), vch1.end()); vch3.insert(vch3.end(), vch2.begin(), vch2.end()); popstack(stack); popstack(stack); stack.push_back(vch3); The value of MAX_SCRIPT_ELEMENT_SIZE is 520 Bytes == Reference Implementation == [Elements](https://github.com/ElementsProject/elements/blob/master/src/script/interpreter.cpp#L1043) ==References== [1]: R. Pike and B. Kernighan, "Program design in the UNIX environment", 1983, https://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/unix_prog_design.pdf [2]: P. Wuille, "Multisig on steroids using tree signatures", 2015, https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-July/019233.html [3]: J. Rubin, "[bitcoin-dev] OP_CAT Makes Bitcoin Quantum Secure [was CheckSigFromStack for Arithmetic Values]", 2021, https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-July/019233.html [4]: T. Ruffing, A. Kate, D. Schröder, "Liar, Liar, Coins on Fire: Penalizing Equivocation by Loss of Bitcoins", 2015, https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.727.6262&rep=rep1&type=pdf [5]: M. Moser, I. Eyal, and E. G. Sirer, Bitcoin Covenants, http://fc16.ifca.ai/bitcoin/papers/MES16.pdf [6]: R. Linus, "Covenants with CAT and ECDSA", 2023, https://gist.github.com/RobinLinus/9a69f5552be94d13170ec79bf34d5e85#file-covenants_cat_ecdsa-md _______________________________________________ bitcoin-dev mailing list [email-masked] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev