Re: [bitcoindev] A Taproot-native (re-)bindable transaction bundle proposal

[Brandon Black <freedom@reardencode.com>]

Hi Greg,

First, thank you for working on these important consensus changes.

## Comparison of hashes.

Compared to CTV, TEMPLATEHASH drops nInputs, nOutputs, and scriptSigs;
and adds the taproot annex presence flag and taproot annex.

Compared to SIGHASH_ANYSCRIPTANYPREVOUT|ALL, TEMPLATEHASH drops
hash_type, _this_ sequence, key_version, and codesep_pos; and adds _all_
sequences.

This puts TEMPLATEHASH in a pretty comfortable middle ground between
CTV's hash and ANYSCRIPTANYPREVOUT's. It indirectly commits to the
number of inputs via sequences, is capable of creating stable txids with
1 input, and makes no concession to constructing the hash on the stack
nor to legacy script.

## Capabilities

As has been previously discussed, all protocols that are possible with
LNHANCE are possible with CTV+CSFS alone. That remains true with
TEMPLATEHASH+CSFS. The other two LNHANCE opcodes are optimizations. This
proposal includes INTERNALKEY for its ability to save 32WU in common
protocols where the taproot internal key can be reused in scripts (e.g.
Lightning Symmetry). The final LNHANCE opcode, PAIRCOMMIT, is omitted
from this proposal and its optimization capacity is enabled for certain
specific cases by TEMPLATEHASH committing to the taproot annex. For
protocols which need to bind and make available one additional data push
with a spend (either pre-committed or spend-time committed), this is
sufficient.

One comment on the commitment to the annex: In my X spaces today, we
discussed whether this restricts future uses of the annex in practice.
We concluded that while it does eliminate certain perverse ways of
implementing certain annex extensions, it does not seem to eliminate any
possible protocol application. E.g. once we have an opcode that is
expected to be used in pre-committed transaction scripts in the wild, we
cannot make a consensus rule that requires all taproot spends to have a
non-empty annex.

## Efficiency

Comparing this proposal to LNHANCE and other earlier proposals in terms
of its efficiency for implementing common proposed protocols: unless a
protocol requires multiple data commitments (e.g. a complex delegation
to key_a after locktime_a or key_b after locktime_b), this proposal will
be within the range of +1WU to -33WU.

For protocols that could have used bare CTV, this proposal is 69WU less
efficient, but as of this writing the only protocol that is known to
take advantage of bare CTV is congestion control trees. I am not aware
of any concrete proposal to implement these. 

For protocols that do require multiple data commitments, each additional
data commitment requires an additional pubkey and 3 signatures to
implement Key Laddering. Adding PAIRCOMMIT or CAT to consensus would
eliminate this.

Concretely, I believe this proposal will be 32WU more efficient in the
Lightning Symmetry uncontested close case.

## Closing thoughts

I'm happy to see this tightly scoped tapscript only opcode package
proposed. As of this writing, I do not have any technical misgivings
about this selection of opcodes and functionality.

I hope to see this proposal garner review from the broader technical
community!

Thanks again for your work,

--Brandon

On 2025-07-09 (Wed) at 11:19:22 -0700, Greg Sanders wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> This is a bit of a follow-up from "What's a good stopping point? ... 
> CTV/CSFS..." from [^1]
> 
> > There has been several objections to this proposal, which we can group 
> into three categories:
> exploration of alternatives, demonstration of usage, and design of the 
> operations to achieve these capabilities
> 
> For this e-mail I would like to address the third point proactively: design 
> of the operations to achieve these capabilities.
> 
> Antoine Poinsot, Steven Roose, and I have been working on a familiar, yet 
> concrete technical proposal that focuses on three well-understood 
> capabilities:
> 
> 1. "Next transaction" capability, ala BIP119
> 2. "Verify signature of message on stack", ala BIP348
> 3. "Push taproot internal key onto stack", ala BIP349
> 
> These first two capabilities can offer radical simplifications
> to well-understood systems when combined. The third is a simple
> update that dovetails with the first two.
> 
> The BIP text is 
> here(https://github.com/instagibbs/bips/blob/bip_op_templatehash/bip-templatehash-csfs-ik.md) 
> and PR here(https://github.com/instagibbs/bips/pull/1), with full 
> motivation for this particular bundle and rationale discussing 
> alternatives. Our main contribution is a fully specified `OP_TEMPLATEHASH` 
> as a drop-in replacement for BIP119 `OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY`. 
> `OP_TEMPLATEHASH` is a simpler and more modern implementation of the "next 
> transaction" capability. It differs in committing to the Taproot annex and 
> being otherwise Taproot native, which allows us to:
> 
> - Use the `OP_SUCCESS` upgrade hooks in place of legacy `OP_NOP`s and be 
> able to push the template hash on the stack making the flagship use case of 
> rebindable signatures more efficient.
> - Re-use the existing pre-computed Taproot sighash fields only instead of 
> introducing new ones (substantially simplifying the implementation and 
> review of the specifications).
> - Not commit to the spending transaction's scriptSigs (which are both 
> unecessary and may incentivize ad-hoc uses of legacy input scripts as 
> programs).
> - Not unnecessarily modify the less well-understood legacy Script.
> 
> Another notable difference is the lack of "bare CTV" analogue, which is 
> implemented here(https://github.com/instagibbs/bitcoin/tree/p2th) but left 
> out of the bundle due to lack of demonstrated utility.
> 
> The BIP for `OP_TEMPLATEHASH` is 
> here(https://github.com/instagibbs/bips/blob/bip_op_templatehash/bip-templatehash.md) 
> and a complete implementation is provided 
> here(https://github.com/instagibbs/bitcoin/pull/3). The bundle itself is 
> heavily inspired by 
> "LNHANCE"(https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/lnhance-bips-and-implementation/376).
> 
> We are hopeful that an opcode/implementation-focused discussion can be held
> concurrently with other efforts such as discussions as to whether
> or not this capability set is a good stopping point, including whether
> this bundle is worth implementing on its own at all, as well as what
> level of assurances we should have as far as tooling and proof of concepts
> is concerned.
> 
> Best,
> Greg
> 
> (1) https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev/c/-qJc1EWQzY0

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