Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] CTV + CSFS: a letter

From: Andrew Poelstra <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 23:02:58 +0000

Le Mon, Jun 09, 2025 at 04:40:52AM -0700, James O'Beirne a écrit :
> Good morning,
> 
> A letter has been published advocating for the final review and
> activation of OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (BIP-119) and OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK
> (BIP-348). 
> 
> The full text of the letter can be found at https://ctv-csfs.com. It is
> reproduced below.
>

Hi all,

James, thanks for posting the letter. Matt, Antoine -- thanks for
replying quickly and respectfully even though you disagree with its
contents. Let me try to clarify my stance and why I signed onto the
letter.

First, the specific choice of CTV + CSFS would not be my first choice
on technical grounds. But what I'd like to see is something that is
technically "good enough" to enable vaults and some new script usecases,
while avoiding things that are politically toxic (which seems to be
pretty-much everything, but maybe right now does not include CTV+CSFS?).

So any arguments about CTV+CSFS on the technical merits I think are
great and within the purview of "review and integration" that the letter
talks about. (The word "final" I think is too strong and in retrospect
I think we should've dropped it. But it's super difficult when writing
these things to identify which specific points of language need to be
changed.)

Second, regarding the ultimatum language -- it was quite difficult to
strike a balance between "Core consists of volunteers working on their
on projects, with no obligation to anybody, and certainly no obligation
to drive forward consensus changes" and "this is a letter that says
nothing substantial at all".

The message that I want to communicate is: Bitcoin Core, like many
stakeholders, can veto any consensus changes because there will never be
a large enough contigent of the Bitcoin community confident to rush in
where angels dare to tread. But furthermore, if nobody in Core wants to
engage at all with consensus changes, then the result is effectively the
same as a veto.

Therefore, if we want to see an increase in script expressivity, somebody
on the Core team needs to help champion it. (There's no one in particular
I imagine this "somebody" to be, and I suppose you could accuse me of
hypocrisy since I'm not volunteering myself, even though I have the
social and technical knowledge to help. It could be, and probably would
have to be, somebody who isn't currently active on Core. But it needs to
be somebody willing and able to work within the Core review process, to
deal with ongoing rebases, etc.)

Third, I really really hope that this letter does not lead to further
brigading or twitter fights or whatever bleeding into the Github repo.
(This is the one point where I think that my fellow cosigners agree with
me fully.) But on the other hand, I don't think that I personally should
shy away from discussion to mitigate that risk; it needs to be mitigated
by more agressive moderation or by higher barriers to entry for people
posting on Core PRs.

Best
Andrew

-- 
Andrew Poelstra
Director, Blockstream Research
Email: apoelstra at wpsoftware.net
Web:   https://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew

The sun is always shining in space
    -Justin Lewis-Webster

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