Re: [bitcoin-dev] Soft-forks and schnorr signature aggregation
On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 11:34 PM, Anthony Townswrote: > On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 05:47:01PM -0700, Bram Cohen via bitcoin-dev wrote: > > [...] Most unused opcodes should be reclaimed as RETURN_VALID, > > but there should still be one OP_NOP and there should be a 'real' > RETURN_VALID, > > which (a) is guaranteed to not be soft forked into something else in the > > future, and (b) doesn't have any parsing weirdness. > > What's the reason for those? I could see an argument for RETURN_VALID, I > guess: > > confA IF condB IF condC IF [pathA] RETURN_VALID ENDIF ENDIF ENDIF [pathB] > > is probably simpler and saves 3 bytes compared to: > > 1 condA IF condB IF condC IF [pathA] NOT ENDIF ENDIF ENDIF IF [pathB] > ENDIF > > but that doesn't seem crazy compelling? Mostly yes it's for that case and also for: condA IF RETURN_VALID ENDIF condb IF RETURN_VALID ENDIF condc Technically that can be done with fewer opcodes using OP_BOOLOR but maybe in the future there will be some incentive for short circuit evaluation But there's also the general principle that it's only one opcode and if there are a lot of things which look like RETURN_VALID there should be one thing which actually is RETURN_VALID > I don't see a reason to just keep one OP_NOP though. > Mostly based on momentum because there are several of them there right now. If noone else wants to defend it I won't either. > > By far the most expedient option is (e) cause a RETURN_VALID at parse > time. > > There's even precedent for this sort of behavior in the other direction > with > > disabled opcodes causing failure at parse time even if they aren't being > > executed. > > You're probably right. That still doesn't let you implement intercal's > COMEFROM statement as a new opcode, of course. :) > That can be in the hardfork wishlist :-) > > A lot can be said about all the options, but one thing I feel like > snarking > > about is that if you get rid of IFs using MAST, then it's highly unclear > > whether OP_DEPTH should be nuked as well. My feeling is that it should > and that > > strict parsing should require that the bottom thing in the witness gets > > referenced at some point. > > I guess when passing the script you could perhaps check if each witness > item could have been replaced with OP_FALSE or OP_1 and still get the > same result, and consider the transaction non-standard if so? > Essentially all opcodes including OP_PICK make clear at runtime how deep they go and anything below the max depth can be safely eliminated (or used as grounds for rejecting in strict mode). The big exception is OP_DEPTH which totally mangles the assumptions. It's trivial to make scripts which use OP_DEPTH which become invalid with things added below the stack then go back to being valid again with more things added even though the individual items are never even accessed. > > > Hacking in a multisig opcode isn't a horrible idea, but it is very stuck > > specifically on m-of-n and doesn't support more complex formulas for how > > signatures can be combined, which makes it feel hacky and weird. > > Hmm? The opcode I suggested works just as easily with arbitrary formulas, > eg, "There must be at least 1 signer from pka{1,2,3}, and 3 signers all > up, except each of pkb{1,2,3,4,5,6} only counts for half": > > 0 pkb6 pkb5 pkb4 pkb3 pkb2 pkb1 pka3 pka2 pka1 9 CHECK_AGGSIG_VERIFY > (declare pubkeys) > 0b111 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS VERIFY > (one of pka{1,2,3} must sign) > 0b001 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS > 0b010 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD > 0b100 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD > DUP ADD > (pka{1,2,3} count double) > 0b01000 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD > 0b1 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD > 0b00010 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD > 0b00100 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD > 0b01000 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD > 0b1 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD > (pkb{1..6} count single) > 6 EQUAL > (summing to a total of 3 doubled) > > Not sure that saves it from being "hacky and weird" though... > That is very hacky and weird. Doing MAST on lots of possibilities is always reasonably elegant, and it only gets problematic when the number of possibilities is truly massive. It's also the case that BLS can support complex key agreement schemes without even giving away that it isn't a simple single signature. Just saying. ___ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
Re: [bitcoin-dev] Soft-forks and schnorr signature aggregation
On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 05:47:01PM -0700, Bram Cohen via bitcoin-dev wrote: > [...] Most unused opcodes should be reclaimed as RETURN_VALID, > but there should still be one OP_NOP and there should be a 'real' > RETURN_VALID, > which (a) is guaranteed to not be soft forked into something else in the > future, and (b) doesn't have any parsing weirdness. What's the reason for those? I could see an argument for RETURN_VALID, I guess: confA IF condB IF condC IF [pathA] RETURN_VALID ENDIF ENDIF ENDIF [pathB] is probably simpler and saves 3 bytes compared to: 1 condA IF condB IF condC IF [pathA] NOT ENDIF ENDIF ENDIF IF [pathB] ENDIF but that doesn't seem crazy compelling? I don't see a reason to just keep one OP_NOP though. > The parsing weirdness of > all the unclaimed opcodes is interesting. Because everything in an IF clause > needs to be parsed in order to find where the ELSE is, you have a few options > for dealing with an unknown opcode getting parsed in an unexecuted section of > code. They are (a) avoid the problem completely by exterminating IF and > MASTing > (b) avoid the problem completely by getting rid of IF and adding IFJUMP, > IFNJUMP, and JUMP which specify a number of bytes (this also allows for script > merkleization) (c) require all new opcodes have fixed length 1, even after > they're soft forked, (d) do almost like (c) but require that on new soft forks > people hack their old scripts to still parse properly by avoiding the OP_ELSE > in inopportune places (yuck!) (e) make it so that the unknown opcodes case a > RETURN_VALID even when they're parsed, regardless of whether they're being > executed. I was figuring (c), fwiw, and assuming that opcodes will just be about manipulating stack values and marking the script as invalid, rather than, say, introducing new flow control ops. > By far the most expedient option is (e) cause a RETURN_VALID at parse time. > There's even precedent for this sort of behavior in the other direction with > disabled opcodes causing failure at parse time even if they aren't being > executed. You're probably right. That still doesn't let you implement intercal's COMEFROM statement as a new opcode, of course. :) > A lot can be said about all the options, but one thing I feel like snarking > about is that if you get rid of IFs using MAST, then it's highly unclear > whether OP_DEPTH should be nuked as well. My feeling is that it should and > that > strict parsing should require that the bottom thing in the witness gets > referenced at some point. I guess when passing the script you could perhaps check if each witness item could have been replaced with OP_FALSE or OP_1 and still get the same result, and consider the transaction non-standard if so? > Hacking in a multisig opcode isn't a horrible idea, but it is very stuck > specifically on m-of-n and doesn't support more complex formulas for how > signatures can be combined, which makes it feel hacky and weird. Hmm? The opcode I suggested works just as easily with arbitrary formulas, eg, "There must be at least 1 signer from pka{1,2,3}, and 3 signers all up, except each of pkb{1,2,3,4,5,6} only counts for half": 0 pkb6 pkb5 pkb4 pkb3 pkb2 pkb1 pka3 pka2 pka1 9 CHECK_AGGSIG_VERIFY (declare pubkeys) 0b111 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS VERIFY (one of pka{1,2,3} must sign) 0b001 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS 0b010 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD 0b100 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD DUP ADD (pka{1,2,3} count double) 0b01000 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD 0b1 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD 0b00010 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD 0b00100 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD 0b01000 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD 0b1 CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS ADD (pkb{1..6} count single) 6 EQUAL (summing to a total of 3 doubled) Not sure that saves it from being "hacky and weird" though... (There are different ways you could do "CHECK_AGG_SIGNERS": for instance, take a bitmask of keys and return the bitwise-and with the keys that signed, or take a bitmask and just return the number of keys matching that bitmask that signed, or take a pubkey index and return a boolean whether that key signed) Cheers, aj ___ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
Re: [bitcoin-dev] Soft-forks and schnorr signature aggregation
Regarding the proposed segwit v2 with reclaiming most things as RETURN_VALID, the net result for what's being proposed in the near future for supporting aggregated signatures in the not-so-near future is to punt. A number of strategies are possible for how to deal with new opcodes being added later on, and the general strategy of making unused opcodes be RETURN_VALID for now and figuring out how to handle it later works for all of them. I think this is the right approach, but wanted to clarify that it is in fact the approach being proposed. That said, there are some subtleties to getting it right which the last message doesn't really cover. Most unused opcodes should be reclaimed as RETURN_VALID, but there should still be one OP_NOP and there should be a 'real' RETURN_VALID, which (a) is guaranteed to not be soft forked into something else in the future, and (b) doesn't have any parsing weirdness. The parsing weirdness of all the unclaimed opcodes is interesting. Because everything in an IF clause needs to be parsed in order to find where the ELSE is, you have a few options for dealing with an unknown opcode getting parsed in an unexecuted section of code. They are (a) avoid the problem completely by exterminating IF and MASTing (b) avoid the problem completely by getting rid of IF and adding IFJUMP, IFNJUMP, and JUMP which specify a number of bytes (this also allows for script merkleization) (c) require all new opcodes have fixed length 1, even after they're soft forked, (d) do almost like (c) but require that on new soft forks people hack their old scripts to still parse properly by avoiding the OP_ELSE in inopportune places (yuck!) (e) make it so that the unknown opcodes case a RETURN_VALID even when they're parsed, regardless of whether they're being executed. By far the most expedient option is (e) cause a RETURN_VALID at parse time. There's even precedent for this sort of behavior in the other direction with disabled opcodes causing failure at parse time even if they aren't being executed. A lot can be said about all the options, but one thing I feel like snarking about is that if you get rid of IFs using MAST, then it's highly unclear whether OP_DEPTH should be nuked as well. My feeling is that it should and that strict parsing should require that the bottom thing in the witness gets referenced at some point. Hacking in a multisig opcode isn't a horrible idea, but it is very stuck specifically on m-of-n and doesn't support more complex formulas for how signatures can be combined, which makes it feel hacky and weird. Also it may make sense to seriously consider BLS signatures, which have a lot of practical benefits starting with them being noninteractively aggregatable so you can always assume that they're aggregated instead of requiring complex semantics to specify what's aggregated with what. My team is working on an implementation which has several advantages over what's currently in the published literature but it isn't quite ready for public consumption yet. This should probably go on the pile of reasons why it's premature to finalize a plan for aggregation at this point. ___ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
Re: [bitcoin-dev] Soft-forks and schnorr signature aggregation
Good morning aj, Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email. ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On March 21, 2018 7:21 PM, Anthony Townswrote: > On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 03:53:59AM -0400, ZmnSCPxj wrote: > > > Good morning aj, > > Good evening Zeeman! > > [pulled from the bottom of your mail] > > > This way, rather than gathering signatures, we gather public keys for > > aggregate signature checking. > > Sorry, I probably didn't explain it well (or at all): during the script, > > you're collecting public keys and messages (ie, BIP 143 style digests) > > which then go into the signing/verification algorithm to produce/check > > the signature. Yes, I think this is indeed what OP_CHECK_AGG_SIG really does. What I propose is that we have two places where we aggregate public keys: one at the script level, and one at the transaction level. OP_ADD_AGG_PUBKEY adds to the script-level aggregate, then OP_CHECK_AGG_SIG adds the script-level aggregate to the transaction-level aggregate. Unfortunately it will not work since transaction-level aggregate (which is actually what gets checked) is different between pre-fork and post-fork nodes. It looks like signature aggregation is difficult to reconcile with script... Regards, ZmnSCPxj ___ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
Re: [bitcoin-dev] Soft-forks and schnorr signature aggregation
Good morning aj, I am probably wrong, but could solution 2 be simplified by using the below opcodes for aggregated signatures? OP_ADD_AGG_PUBKEY - Adds a public key for verification of an aggregated signature. OP_CHECK_AGG_SIG[VERIFY] - Check that the gathered public keys matches the aggregated signature. Then: pubkey1 OP_ADD_AGG_PUBKEY OP_IF pubkey2 OP_ADD_AGG_PUBKEY OP_ELSE cond OP_CHECKCOVENANT OP_ENDIF OP_CHECK_AGG_SIG (omitting the existence of buckets) I imagine that aggregated signatures, being linear, would allow pubkey to be aggregated also by adding the pubkey points (but note that I am not a mathematician, I only parrot what better mathematicians say) so OP_ADD_AGG_PUBKEY would not require storing all public keys, just adding them linearly. The effect is that in the OP_CHECKCOVENANT case, pre-softfork nodes will not actually do any checking. OP_CHECK_AGG_SIG might accept the signature on the stack (combined signature of pubkey1 and pubkey2 and from other inputs), or the bucket the signature is stored in. We might even consider using the altstack: no more OP_ADD_AGG_PUBKEY (one less opcode to reserve!), just push pubkeys on the altstack, and OP_CHECK_AGG_SIG would take the entire altstack as all the public keys to be used in aggregated signature checking. This way, rather than gathering signatures, we gather public keys for aggregate signature checking. OP_RETURN_TRUE interacts with that by not performing aggregate signature checking at all if we encounter OP_RETURN_TRUE first (which makes sense: old nodes have no idea what OP_RETURN_TRUE is really doing, and would fail to understand all its details). I am very probably wrong but am willing to learn how to break the above, though. I am probably making a mistake somewhere. Regards, ZmnSCPxj Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email. ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On March 21, 2018 12:06 PM, Anthony Towns via bitcoin-devwrote: > Hello world, > > There was a lot of discussion on Schnorr sigs and key and signature > > aggregation at the recent core-dev-tech meeting (one relevant conversation > > is transcribed at \[0\]). > > Quick summary, with more background detail in the corresponding footnotes: > > signature aggregation is awesome \[1\], and the possibility of soft-forking > > in new opcodes via OP\_RETURN\_VALID opcodes (instead of OP_NOP) is also > > awesome \[2\]. > > Unfortunately doing both of these together may turn out to be awful. > > RETURN_VALID and Signature Aggregation > > > - > > Bumping segwit script versions and redefining OP_NOP opcodes are > > fairly straightforward to deal with even with signature aggregation, > > the straightforward implementation of both combined is still a soft-fork. > > RETURN_VALID, unfortunately, has a serious potential pitfall: any > > aggregatable signature operations that occur after it have to go into > > separate buckets. > > As an example of why this is the case, imagine introducing a covenant > > opcode that pulls a potentially complicated condition from the stack > > (perhaps, "an output pays at least 5 satoshi to address xyzzy"), > > checks the condition against the transaction, and then pushes 1 (or 0) > > back onto the stack indicating compliance with the covenant (or not). > > You might then write a script allowing a single person to spend the coins > > if they comply with the covenant, and allow breaking the covenant with > > someone else's sign-off in addition. You could write this as: > > pubkey1 CHECKSIGVERIFY > > cond CHECKCOVENANT IFDUP NOTIF pubkey2 CHECKSIG ENDIF > > If you pass the covenant, you supply "SIGHASHALL|BUCKET_1" and aggregate > > the signature for pubkey1 into bucket1 and you're set; otherwise you supply > > "SIGHASHALL|BUCKET\_1 SIGHASHALL|BUCKET\_1" and aggregate signatures for both > > pubkey1 and pubkey2 into bucket1 and you're set. Great! > > But this isn't a soft-fork: old nodes would see this script as: > > pubkey1 CHECKSIGVERIFY > > cond RETURN_VALID IFDUP NOTIF pubkey2 CHECKSIG ENDIF > > which it would just interpret as: > > pubkey1 CHECKSIGVERIFY cond RETURN_VALID > > which is fine if the covenant was passing; but no good if the covenant > > didn't pass -- they'd be expecting the aggregted sig to just be for > > pubkey1 when it's actually pubkey1+pubkey2, so old nodes would fail the > > tx and new nodes
Re: [bitcoin-dev] Soft-forks and schnorr signature aggregation
On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 02:06:18PM +1000, Anthony Towns via bitcoin-dev wrote: > > That leads me to think that interactive signature aggregation is going to > take a lot of time and work, and it would make sense to do a v1-upgrade > that's "just" Schnorr (and taproot and MAST and re-enabling opcodes and > ...) in the meantime. YMMV. > Unfortunately I agree. Another complication with aggregate signatures is that they complicate blind signature protocols such as [1]. In particular they break the assumption "one signature can spend at most one UTXO" meaning that a blind signer cannot tell how many coins they're authorizing with a given signature, even if they've ensured that the key they're using only controls UTXOs of a fixed value. This seems solvable with creative use of ZKPs, but the fact that it's even a problem caught me off guard, and makes me think that signature aggregation is much harder to think about than e.g. Taproot which does not change signature semantics at all. Andrew [1] https://github.com/jonasnick/scriptless-scripts/blob/blind-swaps/md/partially-blind-swap.md -- Andrew Poelstra Mathematics Department, Blockstream Email: apoelstra at wpsoftware.net Web: https://www.wpsoftware.net/andrew "A goose alone, I suppose, can know the loneliness of geese who can never find their peace, whether north or south or west or east" --Joanna Newsom signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
Re: [bitcoin-dev] Soft-forks and schnorr signature aggregation
On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 03:53:59AM -0400, ZmnSCPxj wrote: > Good morning aj, Good evening Zeeman! [pulled from the bottom of your mail] > This way, rather than gathering signatures, we gather public keys for > aggregate signature checking. Sorry, I probably didn't explain it well (or at all): during the script, you're collecting public keys and messages (ie, BIP 143 style digests) which then go into the signing/verification algorithm to produce/check the signature. You do need to gather signatures from each private key holder when producing the aggregate signature, but that happens at the wallet/p2p level, rather than the consensus level. > I am probably wrong, but could solution 2 be simplified by using the below > opcodes for aggregated signatures? > > OP_ADD_AGG_PUBKEY - Adds a public key for verification of an aggregated > signature. > OP_CHECK_AGG_SIG[VERIFY] - Check that the gathered public keys matches the > aggregated signature. Checking the gathered public keys match the aggregated signature is something that only happens for the entire transaction as a whole, so you don't need an opcode for it in the scripts, since they're per-input. Otherwise, I think that's pretty similar to what I was already saying; having: SIGHASH_ALL|BUCKET_1 pubkey OP_CHECKSIG would be adding "pubkey" and a message hash calculated via the SIGHASH_ALL hashing rules to the list of things that the signature for bucket 1 verifies. FWIW, the Bellare-Neven verification algorithm looks something like: s*G = R + K (s,R is the signature) K = sum( H(R, L, i, m) * X_i ) for i corresponding to each pubkey X_i L = the concatenation of all the pubkeys, X_0..X_n m = the concatenation of all the message hashes, m_0..m_n So the way I look at it is each input puts a public key and a message hash (X_i, m_i) into the bucket via a CHECKSIG operation (or similar), and once you're done, you look into the bucket and there's just a single signature (s,R) left to verify. You can't start verifying any of it until you've looked through all the scripts because you need to know L and m before you can do anything, and both of those require info from every part of the aggregation. [0] [1] > The effect is that in the OP_CHECKCOVENANT case, pre-softfork nodes will not > actually do any checking. Pre-softfork nodes not doing any checking doesn't work with cross-input signature aggregation as far as I can see. If it did, all you would have to do to steal people's funds is mine a non-standard transaction: inputs: my-millions: pay-to-pubkey pubkey1 witness=SIGHASH_ALL|BUCKET_1 your-two-cents: pay-to-script-hash script=[1 OP_RETURN_TRUE pubkey2 CHECKSIG] witness=SIGHASH_ALL|BUCKET_1 bucket1: 64-random-bytes output: all-the-money: you Because there's no actual soft-fork at this point every node is an "old" node, so they all see the OP_RETURN_TRUE and stop validating signatures, accepting the transaction as valid, and giving you all my money, despite you being unable to actually produce my signature. Make sense? Cheers, aj [0] For completeness: constructing the signature for Bellare-Neven requires two communication phases amongst the signers, and looks roughly like: 1. each party generates a random variable r_i, and sharing the corresponding curve point R_i=r_i*G and their sighash choice (ie, m_i) with the other signers. 2. this allows each party to calculate R=sum(R_i) and m, and hence H(R,L,i,m), at which point each party calculates a partial signature using their respective private key, x_i: s_i = r_i + H(R,L,i,m)*x_i all these s_i values are then communicated to each signer. 3. these combine to give the final signature (s,R), with s=sum(s_i), allowing each signer to verify that the signing protocol completed successfully, and any signer can broadcast the transaction to the blockchain [1] muSig differs in the details, but is basically the same. ___ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
[bitcoin-dev] Soft-forks and schnorr signature aggregation
Hello world, There was a lot of discussion on Schnorr sigs and key and signature aggregation at the recent core-dev-tech meeting (one relevant conversation is transcribed at [0]). Quick summary, with more background detail in the corresponding footnotes: signature aggregation is awesome [1], and the possibility of soft-forking in new opcodes via OP_RETURN_VALID opcodes (instead of OP_NOP) is also awesome [2]. Unfortunately doing both of these together may turn out to be awful. RETURN_VALID and Signature Aggregation -- Bumping segwit script versions and redefining OP_NOP opcodes are fairly straightforward to deal with even with signature aggregation, the straightforward implementation of both combined is still a soft-fork. RETURN_VALID, unfortunately, has a serious potential pitfall: any aggregatable signature operations that occur after it have to go into separate buckets. As an example of why this is the case, imagine introducing a covenant opcode that pulls a potentially complicated condition from the stack (perhaps, "an output pays at least 5 satoshi to address xyzzy"), checks the condition against the transaction, and then pushes 1 (or 0) back onto the stack indicating compliance with the covenant (or not). You might then write a script allowing a single person to spend the coins if they comply with the covenant, and allow breaking the covenant with someone else's sign-off in addition. You could write this as: pubkey1 CHECKSIGVERIFY cond CHECKCOVENANT IFDUP NOTIF pubkey2 CHECKSIG ENDIF If you pass the covenant, you supply "SIGHASHALL|BUCKET_1" and aggregate the signature for pubkey1 into bucket1 and you're set; otherwise you supply "SIGHASHALL|BUCKET_1 SIGHASHALL|BUCKET_1" and aggregate signatures for both pubkey1 and pubkey2 into bucket1 and you're set. Great! But this isn't a soft-fork: old nodes would see this script as: pubkey1 CHECKSIGVERIFY cond RETURN_VALID IFDUP NOTIF pubkey2 CHECKSIG ENDIF which it would just interpret as: pubkey1 CHECKSIGVERIFY cond RETURN_VALID which is fine if the covenant was passing; but no good if the covenant didn't pass -- they'd be expecting the aggregted sig to just be for pubkey1 when it's actually pubkey1+pubkey2, so old nodes would fail the tx and new nodes would accept it, making it a hard fork. Solution 0a / 0b There are two obvious solutions here: 0a) Just be very careful to ensure any aggregated signatures that are conditional on an redefined RETURN_VALID opcode go into later buckets, but be careful about having separate sets of buckets every time a soft-fork introduces a new redefined opcode. Probably very complicated to implement correctly, and essentially doubles the number of buckets you have to potentially deal with every time you soft fork in a new opcode. 0b) Alternatively, forget about the hope that RETURN_VALID opcodes could be converted to anything, and just reserve OP_NOP opcodes and convert them to CHECK_foo_VERIFY opcodes just as we have been doing, and when we can't do that bump the segwit witness version for a whole new version of script. Or in twitter speak: "non-verify upgrades should be done with new script versions" [3] I think with a little care we can actually salvage RETURN_VALID though! Solution 1 -- You don't actually have to write your scripts in ways that can cause this problem, as long as you're careful. In particular, the problem only occurs if you do aggregatable CHECKSIG operations after "RETURN_VALID" -- if you do all the CHECKSIGs first, then all nodes will be checking for the same signatures, and there's no problem. So you could rewrite the script above as: pubkey1 CHECKSIGVERIFY IF pubkey2 CHECKSIG ENDIF cond CHECKCOVENANT OR which is redeemable either by: sig1 0[and covenant is met] sig1 1 sig2 [covenant is not checked] The witness in this case is essentially committing to the execution path that would have been taken in the first script by a fully validating node, then the new script checks all the signatures, and then validates that the committed execution path was in fact the one that was meant to be taken. If people are clever enough to write scripts this way, I believe you can make RETURN_VALID soft-fork safe simply by having every soft-forked RETURN_VALID operation set a state flag that makes every subsequent CHECKSIG operation require a non-aggregated sig. The drawback of this approach is that if the script is complicated (eg it has multiple IF conditions, some of which are nested), it may be difficult to write the script to ensure the signatures are checked in the same combination as the later logic actually requires -- you might have to store the flag indicating whether you checked particular signatures on the altstack, or use DUP and PICK/ROLL to organise it on the stack. Solution 2 -- We could make that simpler for script