{"id":10642,"date":"2025-04-04T05:04:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T03:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsj-crypto.com\/?p=10642"},"modified":"2025-04-04T05:04:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T03:04:47","slug":"streamlining-development-the-role-of-covenants-and-ctv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsj-crypto.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/04\/streamlining-development-the-role-of-covenants-and-ctv\/","title":{"rendered":"Streamlining Development: The Role of Covenants and CTV"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Creator: Stu<\/strong><\/p>\n

Programming Language(s): Rust<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contributes To: CTV Prototypes, Char Network<\/strong><\/p>\n

Employment At: ZBD<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prior to Bitcoin, Stu dedicated his time to being a Windows System Administrator and providing IT Support. His daily schedule was filled with long and tedious hours spent seated, performing dull maintenance tasks, reconfiguring systems, and resetting passwords for users who had forgotten theirs.<\/p>\n

This was the sort of position where encountering a challenge that genuinely demands your focus in a significant way is so infrequent that you often find yourself idly wishing for such an event to happen.<\/p>\n

During his ample downtime, Stu often spent time scrolling through Reddit threads. However, this turned out to be an unexpectedly beneficial scenario, as this is how he became drawn into the Bitcoin realm around 2017.<\/p>\n

Much like numerous Bitcoin enthusiasts\u2014or rather those who would soon become Bitcoin enthusiasts\u2014Stu became engrossed in the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and altcoin hysteria prevalent at that time. Similarly to several individuals in the Bitcoin community during that period, he eventually faced financial losses due to poor investments in obscure projects that he likely should not have invested in initially.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the allure of Bitcoin drew him down the metaphorical rabbit hole.<\/p>\n

After a few years of delving deeply into Bitcoin, Stu reached a point of excitement and left his position at the height of the 2021 bull market to pursue opportunities within the Bitcoin ecosystem. By then, the programming language Rust had gained considerable popularity across various Bitcoin initiatives and libraries, leading Stu to learn it in order to contribute to Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

At the close of 2022, his job search in the field concluded when he was brought on board by Michael Tildwell to work at ZBD<\/a>, a firm that integrates bitcoin transactions into video games utilizing the Lightning Network.<\/p>\n

Employment At ZBD<\/h2>\n

Stu served in DevOps at ZBD, but during his spare time, he diligently worked on prototype Rust ventures.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of my side projects are linked to what piqued my interest at the time; while at ZBD, I started creating games that could utilize bitcoin,\u201d Stu shared with Bitcoin Magazine.<\/p>\n

To begin, he developed a multiplayer online game, rain.run<\/a>, focused on players acquiring lightning bolts for rewards in satoshis, which helped him become more accustomed to building applications that needed to communicate over a network. Following that, he created a straightforward connect4<\/a> game played via the Nostr protocol.<\/p>\n

\u201c[This] served as an excellent way to understand how Nostr functioned,\u201d Stu remarked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI attended btc++ in Austin in 2024, which was the Script edition.\u201d The four-day conference represented the most intense arena for discourse surrounding Bitcoin script enhancements and covenants in the past year or so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere appeared to be a sort of consensus emerging at that time for covenants<\/a> within Bitcoin,\u201d Stu reflected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sparked a significant interest in me regarding how Bitcoin script operated, and [inspired] me to play around with Taproot and Bitcoin scripts\u2026\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, I didn\u2019t end up with much, but it was an excellent means to learn how scripts functioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

TABConf, Payment Pools, and CTV<\/h2>\n

In 2024, Stu attended TABConf, another conference geared toward developers, which is hosted annually in Atlanta, Georgia. The discussions in Atlanta also heavily invested in covenants.<\/p>\n

Like all developer-centric conferences, TABConf hosted a hackathon. Stu opted to create a project<\/a> utilizing Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs), enabling users to wager on the results of chess competitions. It became abundantly clear to Stu that establishing software around pre-signing numerous transactions added a lot of intricacies for developers.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on this challenge, he stated: \u201cThe solution to this issue seemed to be CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV)<\/a>. Since I wanted to delve deeper into covenants, CTV appeared to be a fitting starting point, so I began integrating CTV into my DLC chess undertaking. I was astonished at how straightforward it made everything\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Stu then proceeded to develop a proof-of-concept prototype<\/a> of a Payment Pool utilizing CTV. Payment pools are a fundamental layer 2 system where groups larger than two share control over a single unspent bitcoin output.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne method to scale bitcoin for universal use, without relying on centralized third parties, is for users to collaborate on UTXOs,\u201d he explained when questioned about his choice to work on a proof-of-concept for a payment pool. \u201cPayment pools are an excellent way to achieve this, especially in conjunction with other layer 2 solutions such as Lightning or Ark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Covenants<\/h2>\n

Covenants have emerged as a divisive topic in discussions regarding the future direction of Bitcoin. Every developer has their individual viewpoint on the matter, and Stu is no exception.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion, employing covenants to substitute pre-signed transactions alone is a remarkable advancement for developers aiming to construct more efficiently and securely,\u201d he stated. \u201cIt eliminates a lot of interactivity and friction for users, reducing the need for them to be online or coordinate with other individuals, which can significantly enhance the user experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

I inquired whether this was what attracted him to creating proof-of-concepts and prototypes utilizing CTV rather than other covenant proposals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was attracted to CTV because it was incredibly easy to implement in the applications I intended to build. After I created the payment pool with CTV, I had plans to replicate the same approach for all covenant proposals. I discovered how to achieve the same functionality with CAT, but it simply took much longer to make it work and involved a substantial amount more code. The Bitcoin script was about 50 lines, in contrast to CTV which required merely 3 lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fairly confident there is consensus among protocol developers that enabling CTV poses no risk to Bitcoin\u2026\u201d he commented. \u201c\u2026so it appears the current contention is that users are not in favor of it. However, users are already utilizing applications and protocols such as Lightning and multisig vaults that would be enhanced by CTV. Therefore\u2026I believe it should be prioritized for the next soft fork\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\u201cSomeone ought to persuade Saylor to tweet a sandwich emoji, and everything will be alright.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in all seriousness, I\u2019m not quite sure. Perhaps more in-person events where individuals can converse face-to-face might assist. It doesn\u2019t appear to be primarily a technical reason for our lack of progress, but rather a political one,\u201d he added in a more serious tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe some of the reluctance stems more from any changes made to Bitcoin. The difficulty in changing it is one of Bitcoin’s remarkable properties, yet it doesn\u2019t need to be applied to soft forks to such an extent. It generates a lot of anxiety for certain Bitcoin developers, particularly Bitcoin Core maintainers. Everyone is awaiting their input on the upcoming fork, which seems to hinder them from participating in discussions altogether, complicating the achievement of consensus on any new alterations,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

The Future<\/h2>\n

Stu recently engaged in the Bitcoin Open Source Software (BOSS) program hosted by Chaincode Labs, designed as a pathway for developers new to the Bitcoin ecosystem to gain experience and rapidly deepen their understanding of building on Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Stu plans to contribute to the Char Network, a somewhat under-the-radar initiative aimed at creating a new bitcoin staking platform spearheaded by Jeremy Rubin, the developer who originally designed and proposed CTV. He intends to keep focusing on his personal side projects and contributing to open-source initiatives as well, with the ultimate goal of beginning contributions to Bitcoin Core itself.<\/p>\n

Stu shared his thoughts on Bitcoiners’ priorities moving into the future:<\/p>\n

\u201cOur primary focus should be on enhancing self-custody. Currently, it\u2019s quite inadequate, and I believe more Bitcoiners need to acknowledge that. Backing up 12 words does seem straightforward, but it truly isn\u2019t that simple, and hardly anyone is succeeding at it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


\n
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