S15 E65: Bitcoin Covenants Without Soft Forks with Avihu M. Levy of StarkWare

The recent ColliderScript research paper is a game changer: it enables Bitcoin covenants at a high cost, but without requiring any soft fork. It's the most remarkable breakthrough since BitVM and co-author Avihu M. Levy is here to explain how it works!

Time stamps:

Introduction (00:00:45)

Avihu M. Levy's Background in Bitcoin (00:02:25)

Covenants in Bitcoin (00:03:43)

Impact of Taproot Upgrade (00:06:07)

Research Renaissance in Bitcoin (00:08:42)

Debate on Taproot's Impact (00:09:18)

ColliderScript Paper Overview (00:12:21)

Covenants and Script Limitations (00:14:09)

Bridging Script Worlds (00:16:11)

Importance of Covenants (00:17:34)

Covenants and Scaling (00:22:23)

Community Sentiment on Covenants (00:23:45)

Research and Development for Covenants (00:25:07)

Concerns About Covenants (00:25:48)

Predicting the Impact of Taproot (00:26:26)

Funding for Covenant Research (00:28:42)

ColliderScript Overview (00:29:44)

Background on ColliderScript Development (00:30:30)

Future Improvements for Collider Script (00:33:21)

Motivation Behind Collider Script (00:36:18)

Community Demand for Simplified Solutions (00:39:07)

Starkware's Goals and Community Perception (00:40:27)

Avihu's Bitcoin Journey (00:40:33)

Technological Readiness (00:41:43)

Bitcoin vs Ethereum (00:42:01)

Importance of STARKs (00:42:45)

Closing Remarks (00:43:27)