Bitcoin has always sacrificed utility for security. The forthcoming Taproot upgrade to Bitcoin blockchain could change this. It appears to offer a path to Turing completeness, meaning developers would be able to implement any program they wanted to on the Bitcoin blockchain. Transaction costs and block sizes would likely restrict the utility of a Bitcoin smart contract for the near future, preventing it from becoming a competitor to Ethereum, particularly as Layer 2 solutions come online making the network even cheaper and faster, however, Taproot will likely open the doors for a variety of new uses.
A few interesting ones are detailed in our summary of Bitcoin Covenants Unchained. Check out the comments for an engaging discussion between Clara Schneidewind, Research Group Leader for the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, and SCRF Research Team Lead Lucas Nuzzi.
The Smart Contract Research Forum reached out to Massimo Bartoletti and Roberto Zunino, authors (along with Stefano Lande) of “BitML: a Calculus for Bitcoin Smart Contracts” and “Bitcoin Covenants Unchained,” two publications that helped define the technological framework for the upgrade.
Click here for an interview with the two professors, conducted over email by Lucas Nuzzi and Clara Schneidewind.
How do you imagine BitML changing Bitcoin smart contracts?