Summary

This technical paper explores ColliderScript, a novel method for enforcing covenants on Bitcoin outputs without requiring changes to the Bitcoin protocol. The authors propose a hash collision-based equivalence check that allows the evaluation of transaction signatures in Small Script, which enables the enforcement of covenants. This approach leverages collisions in SHA1 and RIPEMD hash functions, arguing that while finding collisions is relatively easy, finding triple collisions (necessary to break the covenant) is computationally infeasible. The paper details the algorithm for finding hash collisions, addresses the challenges of implementing the equivalence check in Small Script, and discusses the security of the proposed approach. Overall, ColliderScript offers a promising solution for enabling covenant functionality on Bitcoin without requiring modifications to the underlying protocol.
“Robin Linus, a Bitcoin developer who has made waves for a project known as BitVM and more recently BitVM2 that could unlock greater programmability, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message that the research paper was "not really practical" in its current form but represented a "pretty awesome idea." "It would cost like north of $10m to execute such a covenant, but the idea behind it is ingenious," Linus wrote. "I hope people will try to come up with optimizations to make it practical."
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