Peter Wülle Introduces Miniscript – A New Smart Contract Language For Bitcoin

Deploying smart contracts in Bitcoin can be easier – developer Peter Wuille introduced a new programming language designed specifically for their use.

Miniscript is called
make it easier for programmers to create more complete smart contracts in Bitcoin. According to Wülle, he himself, Andrew Poelstra and Sanket Sanjalkar worked on the code for about a year. Although this was known in the developer community, Wülle noted that he decided to publish the language on the developer mailing list only this week, because now he has reached “the stage where I would like to draw more attention to it”.

Miniscript is based on the Script smart contract language, which allows users to specify certain conditions that must be met before Bitcoins can be spent. The code proposed by Wülle improves the base language in several directions at once.

For example, a developer notes that using code has become easier. As an example, he cites a situation where “user A can pick up coins at any time, and user B in one day.” Here’s how these rules are implemented in Script code:

OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIGVERIFY <144> OP_CSV OP_ENDIF

And so in Miniscript:

or_d (c: pk (A), and_v (vc: pk_h (B), older (144)))

Miniscript is built on the basis of Script and is able to “compile” into the native language of Bitcoin.

The new code has been approved by the community. For example, Blockstream engineer Rusty Russell wrote on Twitter:

“This will be one of those technologies that will greatly simplify our lives. It will be implemented quietly, but it will be vital. ”

There are many potential uses for the language, such as simplifying the implementation of complex scripts in a wallet, as Eric Lombrozo wrote. Or, as Jimmy Song noted, the code can even be used to support the Lightning Network.

Song also said that this language of smart contracts is different from the language of Solidity in Ethereum. Although Ethereum allows you to write much more types of smart contracts, Miniscript offers more modest features. However, according to Song, this is for the better, as it “reduces the complexity and the ability to attack.”

The code release includes two working implementations in the programming languages ​​C ++ and Rust, which Wulle called “incomplete”, adding:

“Thanks to large-scale randomized tests, we are confident that language design and related evidence are compatible with existing consensus and standardization rules.”

In May of this year, Peter Wulle introduced
two BIPs for the future Bitcoin soft fork.