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)