Is it really any surprise, given that cats have basically dominated the internet for the past two decades, that cat memes have finally taken over the Bitcoin space as well in the past few weeks? Cats are the most popular meme on the internet, so it's not at all surprising that the Taproot Wizards leaned into them, and reinforced this by trolling Luke about his “food choices.”
However, the question must be asked, are meme campaigns really the way we want to decide and discuss consensus changes on a valuable protocol like Bitcoin? I've seen many music videos, and campaigns to go out around the world and “educate” people about OP_CAT, and the entire “Quest” system that Taproot Wizards launched… but the truth is that the vast majority of this content was created by me. What I saw was incredibly superficial. unbelievable.
Rijndael, “Artificer” at Taproot Wizards and one of the few people, if not the only person, who actually tweaks and plays with OP_CAT to build example use cases, made a demo of a covenant script based on OP_CAT.
This script forces a specific amount of Bitcoin to be sent to a specific address, and unanimously there is no other way to spend these coins except through a transaction that meets these exact conditions. Look at the size of this script:
OP_TOALTSTACK OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT 5 7368 OP_SHA256 OP_DUP OP_ROT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_SHA256 6295ce870b07029bfcdb2dce28d9 59f2815b16f81798 OP_DUP OP_DUP OP_TOALTSTACK 2 OP_ROLL OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_CAT OP_SHA256 OP_FROMALTSTACK OP_SW AP OP_CAT OP_FROMALTSTACK OP_DUP 1 OP_CAT OP_ROT OP_EQUALVERIFY 2 OP_CAT 79be667ef9dcbbac55a06295ce 870b07029bfcdb2dce28d959f2815b16f81798 OP_CHECKSIG
This is what it takes to emulate CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY. The equivalent text using CTV would simply be:
CTV.
I ask, what is the value of something like OP_CAT in simulating the case of basic template conventions (things that require a spending transaction to meet certain pre-defined conditions to be valid) like this? We know exactly how to deal with schemes that impose a template on transactions that spend outputs constrained by the template covenant, and we have multiple proposals for them. CTV, TXHASH, OP_TX, and even APO can emulate these schemes by stuffing the signature into the lock output of the transaction at a cost of an additional 64 bytes.
What is the actual use of OP_CAT in “experimentation” to meet the needs of a class of use cases that are mature enough in design that there are at least 4 charter proposals that can handle these use cases at a fraction of the data cost? “Oh, we want to try CAT because it's flexible!” Do you want to use 30 OP calls to do something that could be done in one call? Is this a reason to enact a consensus change on Bitcoin? The logic of this is beyond ridiculous.
Reducing risks
In a vacuum, OP_CAT is sold as “simply connects two strings”, and many memes try to frame it as “how could this be dangerous?” This is a largely disingenuous narrative surrounding the proposal, completely ignoring how it interacts with other present and future aspects of the text.
In particular, CSFS+CAT opens up a huge amount of possibilities in terms of what can be done with a Bitcoin script, and not all of them are necessarily positive. CSFS allows you to check the signature on a random piece of data during script execution, and CAT allows you to “glue” different pieces of data together on the stack. These two things create particle A design space for what can be done with Bitcoin.
One concrete example is the possibility of imposing amounts, or relationships between different amounts, for specific inputs and outputs in a transaction. CAT allows you to generate a transaction hash from individual parts on the stack, and CSFS allows you to verify the signature against a public key in the lock program against random parts of that transaction as you create it. This could eventually enable the creation of open UTXOs that anyone can spend, as long as the spending transaction meets certain criteria, such as sending a specific amount of coins to a specific address. Combine this with the reality of OP_RETURN-based assets, and this starts to enter decentralized exchange (DEX) territory.
Some of the worst incentive distortion problems that have come to fruition on other blockchains ultimately stem from the creation of DEXes on those chains. Having a non-interactive live exchange function on a blockchain is one of the worst forms of MEV, especially when there is the potential for miners to lock in their profits across multiple trades within the scope of a single block, rather than having to actually bear the risk of a position across multiple blocks before closing it and making a profit.
Part of the movement behind Taproot Wizards is “reinvention.” That is, the lessons learned in the land of evil coins go back to Bitcoin, and now while I vehemently reject the idea that anything useful has been developed on other coins in the past decade other than the basic concept of zero-knowledge proofs, this increasingly loud slogan ignores a huge element of that dynamic. Even if you don't agree with my point there: There are lessons to be learned regarding what not to do as well as what to do.
DEXes are one of the things not to do. Nothing has caused as much chaos, volatility in fee dynamics (which we need to mitigate over time for the sustainability of the second layers), and all the incentive chaos regarding the underlying consensus layers of these protocols and their degree of centralization. The idea that we should rush to bring these kinds of problems to Bitcoin, or exacerbate them by offering a way to integrate Bitcoin assets into it in more dynamic and flexible ways, is frankly crazy. This to me speaks volumes about large groups of people who haven't learned anything from watching what's happened on other blockchains in the last half decade or so.
Forever shackled by the cat
Given the above dynamic between CSFS + CAT, it's worth noting that Reardencode's recent LNHANCE proposal (CTV + CSFS + Internal Key) offers a path to also give us Lightning in a more block space efficient way than using APO. If this argument, based on proof of concepts, ends up winning over Lightning developers who want LN parity in order to simplify Lightning channel management and implementation maintenance, we may end up getting CSFS in the process. If OP_CAT was active before then, there is no way to avoid the types of harmful side effects of the two proposals combined.
This applies to every soft fork proposed to go forward if OP_CAT is activated. It will be impossible to escape any side effects or use cases enabled by the combination of OP_CAT and any new proposals that come in the future. OP_CAT on its own is inefficient, inefficient and somewhat useless. But in combination with other operational processes, they begin to gain stupid flexibility and strength. This will be a dynamic that we will never be able to escape, and features that may become absolutely essential in the future for Bitcoin's scalability could inevitably come with massive downsides and risks just because OP_CAT exists.
Is this a reality we want to enter simply because of a meme campaign? Because people want to tinker with largely inefficient ways of doing things rather than looking for more efficient, purpose-driven proposals? I would say no.
Meme campaigns can be fun, I know that. It fosters a sense of community and engagement, which is an inherent and inevitable part of the Internet and the many cultures on it. But this is not how we should decide the Bitcoin development process. It can be fun, and it can be quite brutal when you stab directly at the heart of the things people dance around or quibble about. But they are terrible at capturing nuance and complexity in many respects.
Trying to guide consensus in a network like Bitcoin based solely on the value of a meme, rather than rational consideration of the proposals and their implications, is a disaster waiting to happen. The conservatism and caution in Bitcoin's development is what has kept it at the forefront of this space as cryptocurrencies have come and gone, leading to its downfall in the consequences of its carefree development stance. As much as Bitcoin desperately needs to emerge from its current state of stagnation and lack of forward progress, turning cashless memes and music videos is not the way to do it. It risks destroying what made Bitcoin valuable in the first place: its strong, conservative foundation.
