Oct 2, 2025 15:00:22 PortlandHODL <ad...@qrsnap.io>:
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On Thu, Oct 02, 2025 at 06:21:18PM -0700, /dev /fd0 wrote:
>
> We can't predict future usage,
Aside from proof-of-publication (i.e. data storage directly in the UTXO
set) there is no usage of script which can't be equally (or better)
accomplished by using a Segwit v0 or Taproot script.
> so it would be great if this was restricted
> to OP_RETURN. While there is no real use for a scriptPubKey larger than 520
> bytes as shown in the data you shared, it is possible that users may create
> more OP_RETURN outputs after this change. It does not affect the UTXO set
> but will cost more and economically discourage the use of multiple
> OP_RETURN outputs.
>
Restricting it to OP_RETURN would have zero effect on people trying to
use scriptpubkeys for data storage. They would switch to any of the 65
or so other OP_RETURN equivalents, and failing that, switch to
OP_RESERVED, then to OP_FALSE, then to `0 1 EQVERIFY`, and so on. A
restriction that applies specifically to OP_RETURN outputs is no
restriction at all.
If we're going this route, we should just close all the gaps for the immediate future:
- Limit (new) scriptPubKeys to 83 bytes or less. 34 doesn't seem terrible. UTXOs are a huge cost to nodes, we should always keep them as small as possible. Anything else can be hashed (if SHA256 is broken, we need a hardfork anyway).
- Limit script data pushes to 256 bytes, with an exception for BIP16 redeem scripts.
- Make undefined witness/taproot versions invalid, including the annex and OP_SUCCESS*. To make any legitimate usage of them, we need a softfork anyway (see below about expiring this).
- Limit taproot control block to 257 bytes (128 scripts max), or at least way less than it currently is. 340e36 scripts is completely unrealistic.
- Make OP_IF invalid inside Tapscript. It should be unnecessary with taproot, and has only(?) seen abuse.
We can do these all together in a temporary softfork that self-expires after a year or two. This would buy time to come up with longer-term solutions, and observe how it impacts the real world. Since it expires, other softforks making use of upgradable mechanisms can just wait it out for those mechanisms to become available again - therefore we basically lose nothing. (This is intended to buy us time, not as a permanent fix.)
Alternatively, but much more complex, we could redesign the block weight metric so the above limits could be exceeded, but at a higher weight-per-byte; perhaps weigh data 25% more per byte beyond the expected size. This could also be a temporary softfork, perhaps with a rolling window, so future softforks could be free to lower weights should they be needed.
Another idea might be to increase the weight based on coin-days-destroyed/coin-age, so rapid churn has a higher feerate than occasional settlements. But this risks encouraging UTXO bloat, so needs careful consideration to proceed further.
Happy to throw together a BIP and/or code if there's community support for this.
Luke
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