Miniscript a new programming language for Bitcoin

Bitcoin Core developer Peiter Wuille has introduced a new programming language called Miniscript. It can be used to simplify the development of smart contracts for Bitcoin.

One of the most prolific and respected Core developers, Wuille is responsible for creating and implementing Segregated Witness (SegWit).

Miniscript is built on the existing Script language for Bitcoin smart contracts and aims to optimize it. The script allows you to specify certain conditions that must be met in order to spend bitcoin. For example, it may set a deadline for transactions or request multiple signatures to verify a transaction.

Currently, Script language is very difficult to use to perform various types of static analysis, generic signing, and policy compilation. According to Wuille’s documentation, the Miniscript functions are a representation for scripts that make these operations possible.

How does Miniscript help?

Wuille published on Twitter an example of how Miniscript can be used:

Imagine that a company wants to protect its cold-stored funds using a multi-security policy. This requires approval from two of the 3 executive directors. However, one of the executives has a configuration program based on 2FA / multisig / timelock. The whole configuration can be one of the “participants” multisig “

The developer said that if there is a demand, it will work on incorporating parts of Miniscript into the Bitcoin core. The programming language has already undergone extensive testing in accordance with the Bitcoin consensus rules. Wuille is of the opinion that the Minister could work with more wallet technologies, and the other developers are working on a Rust library for it.