Base support for two Bitcoin improvement proposals (BIP) seems to be emerging for the next Bitcoin soft bifurcation, focused on around two candidates: BIPS 119 and 348.
BIP are the formal method for the discussion of Bitcoin proposed changes. Theoretically, if a BIP obtains sufficient generalized support, Bitcoin will be added, through a soft fork or a routine update to Bitcoin Core. Often, these bips are mentioned by nicknames and multiple proposals can be included in a soft fork. BIP 119 refers to op_checktemplinify (CTV) while BIP 348 refers to op_checksigfromstack (CSFS).
This article first appeared in Medium blockspaceThe leading publication of the Bitcoin industry dedicated to cover Bitcoin Tech, Markets, Mining and Ordinals. Get Blockspace Articles directly on your entrance tray by clicking here.
The technical community of Bitcoin generally debate to these bips exhaustively. The Taproot Wizards, a Bitcoin developed firm better known to their Bitcoin NFTS, obtains a useful graph that explains the confusing and apparently circular process of these discussions.
In summary, the Bitcoin Soft Fork process requires an approximate estimate of the support of Bitcoin interested parties, including developers, custodians, investors and miners. The best proxy for this support from the interested parties remains Bitcoin Miners, which can mark the support for an alteration of the code base pointing to the changes in their minted blocks. In general, Bitcoin Core requests 95% of the blocks for a period to point out the change before blocking the update for activation.
Even so, there is no definitive heuristics to define how the “generalized support” looks, and Bitcoin’s consensus is a objective in constant evolution and moving. Miners are useful to point out a change just because they are a truly “accounting” entity in the Bitcoins network. In other words, it is difficult to say about the consensus of the world of meat given the decentralized structure of Bitcoin.
In the course of February and March, we have registered a definitive change since numerous developers provided their explicit support to the two bips.
What is in a proposal?
During the last weeks, numerous Western Bitcoin developers tweeted their support for CTV and CSF, a strong sign that at least Twitterverse is joining in favor of certain changes in Bitcoin.
CTV and CSF allow new ways to write Bitcoin script. Bitcoin Script is the lower level programming language of Bitcoin used to, among other things, create and send transactions. Proposed by former Bitcoin Core Jeremy Rubin collaborator, CTV has existed for more than half decade, while CSFS was only formalized in November 2024 by Jeremy Rubin and Brandon Black.
These two BIP would enable “agreements” in Bitcoin. A pact simply restricts the way a wallet can spend bitcoin on future transactions. Generally, the agreements are expected to improve the panorama for Bitcoin Autocustody, rates management and improve existing bitcoin technology such as ray, ark and contract -based applications.
In addition, developers consider that these two proposals are “closely defined.” In terms of lay people, this means that, if activated, there is a low probability that users exploit them for something unexpected. The Bitcoin developer community tends to deliberate any change in Bitcoin. For example, despite the fact that Bip 119 has remained unchanged for almost half a decade, there was once not long ago when CTV was considered too aggressive for activation.
A long time
Maybe remember that Rubin’s previous campaign for CTV received a strong setback, especially Bitcoiners with great followers, including Adam Back and Jimmy Song. Criticism became a significant rejection of many in the Bitcoin community, which finally led Rubin to step back Bitcoin all together.
So what changed? The recent promotion for the OP_CAT Operation Code (BIP 347) seems to have expanded the Overton window of the acceptable Bitcoin proposals, framing CTV and CSF as the comparatively “conservative” options. It is important to keep in mind that most Op_Cat supporters are also in favor of BIPS 119 and 348 (and most proposals in general).
What can we expect next? On the one hand, more conversation. The developers are expected to meet in some technical conferences such as OPNExt in April, BTC ++ in July and Tabconf in October. Once developers begin to form an approximate consensus, the real activation of soft bifurcation moves the miners, community and investors.
However, there is no formal process for “how Bifurcar soft bitcoin”. So we stayed with many open questions. For example, will it include a soft potential bifurcation fair CTV and CSFS? Op_cat, which is often included in this operation code suite, will join the conversation? How will a real soft fork activation occur? And other interested parties such as Bitcoin miners will take note?
Only one thing is clear: you will have to feel comfortable with many abbreviations.
