By Bitcoin Mekasini - 3 masina talu ai - Taimi Faitau: 7 minute
I Meme, Pe Leai i Meme: Le PUSI
O se mea e matua ofo ai, talu ai o pusi ua matua pulea le initaneti mo le luasefulu tausaga talu ai, o pusi meme ua iu lava ina pulea le Bitcoin space as well in the last few weeks? Cats are the most viral meme on the internet, so it's not shocking in the least bit that the Taproot Wizards have leaned into it, reinforced by the trolling Luke over his “dietary choices.”
The question has to be asked though, are meme campaigns really how we want to go about deciding and discussing consensus changes to a protocol as valuable as Bitcoin? I’ve seen numerous music videos, campaigns to go out in the world and “educate” people on OP_CAT, and the whole “Quest” system that Taproot Wizards has launched taking place…but the reality is the vast majority of this content that I have seen has been incredibly superficial.
Rijndael, "Artificer" i Taproot Wizards ma o se tasi o nai tagata, pe a le na o le pau lea o le tagata, o loʻo taʻalo moni ma taʻalo ma OP_CAT e fausia ai faʻataʻitaʻiga faʻaoga, ua faia se faʻataʻitaʻiga o se tusitusiga faʻavae OP_CAT.
This script enforces a specific amount of Bitcoin be sent to a specific address, and by consensus there is no other way to spend these coins except with a transaction that meets those exact conditions. Look at the size of this script:
OP_TOALTSTACK OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT de890a8209d796493ee7bac9a58b62fbced10ccb7311e24f26c461c079ead08c OP_SWAP OP_CAT TOP_CATOP_CAT_TOP_CAT_TOP_CAT_TOP 54617053696768617368 OP_SHA256 OP_DUP OP_ROT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_SHA256 424950303334302f6368616c6c656e6765 OP_OPRO_DUP256be79 OP_SHA667bb9d55d06295b870d07029f2f28f959f2815f16f81798f2f256f1f2f79f667f9f55f06295f870f07029f 2ce28b959bfcdb2815dce16d81798fXNUMXbXNUMXfXNUMX OP_DUP OP_DUP OP_TOALTSTACK XNUMX OP_ROLL OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_SHAXNUMX OP_FROMALTTPSWACKXNUMX CAT OP_ROT OP_EQUALVERIFY XNUMX OP_CAT XNUMXbeXNUMXefXNUMXdcbbacXNUMXaXNUMXceXNUMXbXNUMXbfcdbXNUMXdceXNUMXdXNUMXfXNUMXbXNUMXfXNUMX OP_CHECKSIG
Ole mea lea e mana'omia e fa'ata'ita'i ai CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY. O le tusitusiga tutusa e faʻaaoga ai le CTV e na o le:
CTV .
Ou te fesili, o le a le taua o se mea e pei o le OP_CAT i le faʻataʻitaʻiina o le tulaga o feagaiga faʻataʻitaʻi faavae (mea e manaʻomia ai se faʻatauga faʻaalu e faʻataunuʻu ai nisi tulaga faʻamatalaina i luma atu o le taimi e aoga) pei o lenei? Matou te iloa tonu le auala e faʻatautaia ai fuafuaga faʻamalosia se faʻataʻitaʻiga i fefaʻatauaiga e faʻaalu ai se galuega o loʻo lokaina i se feagaiga faʻataʻitaʻiga, ma e tele ni talosaga mo i latou. CTV, TXHASH, OP_TX, ma e oʻo lava i le APO e mafai ona faʻataʻitaʻiina nei polokalame e ala i le faʻapipiʻiina o se saini i le lokaina o se fefaʻatauaiga i le tau o le 64 paita faaopoopo.
What actual use is OP_CAT in “experimenting” to meet the needs of a class of use cases that are mature enough in design that there are at least 4 covenant proposals that can handle those use cases with a tiny fraction of the data cost? “Oh, we want to experiment with CAT because it’s flexible!” You want to use 30 OP calls to do something that can be done in one? That is a reason to actually enact a consensus change to Bitcoin? The logic of that is beyond absurd.
Fa'aitiitiga Tulaga lamatia
I totonu o se masini OP_CAT o loʻo faʻatau atu e pei o le "naʻo le tuʻufaʻatasia o manoa e lua", ma o le tele o meme e taumafai e faʻapipiʻi o le "faʻafefea ona lamatia lena mea?" Ose fa'amatalaga fa'atauva'a e si'osi'omia ai le talosaga, ma e matua le amana'ia pe fa'afefea ona fegalegaleai ma isi vaega o lo'o iai ma le lumana'i o tusitusiga.
In particular CSFS + CAT opens a massive amount of possibilities in terms of what can be done with Bitcoin script, not all of it necessarily positive. CSFS allows you to verify a signature on an arbitrary piece of data in the course of executing a script, and CAT allows you to “glue” different pieces of data together on the stack. These two things create a lāpoʻa design space for what it is possible to do with Bitcoin.
O se tasi o fa'ata'ita'iga mautu o le mafai lea ona fa'amalosia aofa'i, po'o so'otaga i le va o aofa'iga eseese, o mea fa'apitoa ma mea e maua i se fefa'atauaiga. O le CAT e fa'atagaina oe e fausia se fa'atauga fa'atauga mai vaega ta'itasi i luga o le fa'aputuga, ma CSFS e fa'atagaina oe e fa'amaonia se saini e fa'asaga i se ki fa'alaua'itele i le fa'amaufa'ailoga fa'asaga i vaega fa'atauva'a o lena fefa'ataua'iga a'o fausia. Ole mea lea e mafai ai ona fa'atupuina ole UTXO avanoa e mafai e so'o se tasi ona fa'aalu, pe a fa'amalieina le fefa'ataua'iga o tupe fa'atatau, e pei o se aofa'i o tupe e lafo i se tuatusi fa'apitoa. Fa'atasia lenei mea ma le mea moni o aseta fa'avae OP_RETURN, ma e amata ona o'o atu i le teritori o Decentralized Exchanges (DEX).
Some of the worst incentive distortion problems that have come to fruition on other blockchains ultimately stem from the creation of DEXes on those chains. Having direct non-interactive exchange functionality on the blockchain is one of the worst forms of MEV, especially when the potential exists for miners to lock-in their profit across multiple trades in the span of a single block, rather than having to actually carry the risk of a position across multiple blocks before closing it out and realizing profit.
Part of the movement behind Taproot Wizards is “bringing the innovation back.” I.e. that lessons learned in shitcoin land are coming home i Bitcoin, now while I firmly reject the notion that anything useful has been developed on other coins in the last decade other than the basic concept of zero knowledge proofs, this mantra getting louder ignores a massive component of that dynamic even if you disagree with my view there: e iai a'oa'oga e a'oa'oina e uiga i mea e LĒ faia fa'apea fo'i ma mea E FAI.
DEXes are one of the things NOT to do. Nothing has caused as much chaos, volatility in fee dynamics (which we need to smooth out over time for sustainability of second layers), and just all around incentive chaos regarding the base consensus layers of these protocols and their degree of centralization. The idea that we should rush to bring these types of problems to Bitcoin, or exacerbate them by introducing a way to trustlessly embed the bitcoin asset into them in more dynamic and flexible ways, is frankly insane. This to me speaks of large swaths of people who haven’t learned anything from watching what happened on other blockchains in the last half decade or so.
Fa'avavau Nonoa E Le Pusi
Looking at the dynamic above between CSFS + CAT, it is worth pointing out that Reardencode’s recent LNHANCE proposal (CTV + CSFS + Internal Key) offers a path to give us eltoo for Lightning in a way that is actually more blockspace efficient than using APO. If this argumentation, and build out of proof of concepts, winds up winning over Lightning developers who want LN symmetry in order to simplify Lightning channel management and implementation maintenance, we very well could wind up getting CSFS in the process. If OP_CAT were active prior to this, then there is no way to avoid the types of detrimental side effects of the two proposals being combined.
This would hold true for every soft fork proposal going forward if OP_CAT were ever activated. It would be impossible to escape whatever side effects or use cases were enabled by combining OP_CAT with whatever new proposals come in future. On its own OP_CAT is clunky, inefficient, and rather pointless. But in combination with other OPs it begins to get stupidly flexible and powerful. This would be a dynamic we would never be able to escape, and features that might wind up being critically necessary in the future for Bitcoin’s scalability could inescapably come with massive downsides and risks simply because of the existence of OP_CAT.
O se mea moni ea lea tatou te fia ulufale i ai ona o se faʻasalalauga faʻasalalau? Ona o tagata e mananaʻo e faʻataʻitaʻi i ni auala le lelei e fai ai mea nai lo le vaʻavaʻai i le sili atu ona lelei ma faʻavae fuafuaga? Ou te fai atu leai.
Meme campaigns can be fun, I know this. They foster a sense of community and involvement, it's an inherent and inescapable part of the internet and the numerous cultures that exist on it. But this is not how we should be deciding the development process of Bitcoin. They can be fun, and they can even be viciously savage at stabbing directly to the heart of matters people dance around or equivocate on. But they are atrocious at capturing nuance and complexity in many regards.
Trying to steer the consensus of a network like Bitcoin purely based on the value of a meme, rather than reasoned consideration of proposals and their implications, is a disaster waiting to happen. The conservatism and caution of Bitcoin development is what has kept it at the forefront of this space as shitcoins have come and gone, imploding in the consequences of their fly by night carefree development attitude. As much as Bitcoin sorely needs to break out of its current rut of stagnation and lack of forward progress, devolving to uncritical memes and music videos is not how to do that. It risks destroying what made Bitcoin valuable in the first place, its solid and conservative foundation.
Punavai autu: Bitcoin tusiata