Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Beyond Jets: Microcode: Consensus-Critical Jets Without Softforks

From: ZmnSCPxj <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:47:33 +0000

Good morning again Russell,

> Good morning Russell,
>
> > Thanks for the clarification.
> > You don't think referring to the microcode via its hash, effectively using 32-byte encoding of opcodes, is still rather long winded?

For that matter, since an entire microcode represents a language (based on the current OG Bitcoin SCRIPT language), with a little more coordination, we could entirely replace Tapscript versions --- every Tapscript version is a slot for a microcode, and the current OG Bitcoin SCRIPT is just the one in slot `0xc2`.
Filled slots cannot be changed, but new microcodes can use some currently-empty Tapscript version slot, and have it properly defined in a microcode introduction outpoint.

Then indication of a microcode would take only one byte, that is already needed currently anyway.

That does limit us to only 255 new microcodes, thus the cost of one microcode would have to be a good bit higher.

Again, remember, microcodes represent an entire language that is an extension of OG Bitcoin SCRIPT, not individual operations in that language.

Regards,
ZmnSCPxj