OP_CAT enables any contract in Bitcoin

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At a recent seminar in Silicon Valley, sCrypt founder and CEO Xiaohui Liu talked about Bitcoin contracts and how the opcode “OP_CAT” is fundamental to how things work on Bitcoin, enabling any type of contract imaginable.

Bitcoin smart contracts have always existed

“If you have Bitcoin, you are always using smart contracts,” Liu says, opening the seminar and explaining his thoughts about transactions.

In Liu’s way of thinking, entering an address to send coins to is a form of smart contract. It’s essentially using public/private key cryptography to enforce the condition, “You can only spend these coins if you have the corresponding private key,” he said.

He says Bitcoin had a virtual machine (Bitcoin Script) upon release. It likewise had many opcodes, but unlike on BSV which restored almost all of the disabled opcodes in February 2020, many on BTC are still disabled. ‘OP_CAT‘ is one such code.

sCrypt, a high-level language for writing contracts and more

While Bitcoin Script was native to the system, most developers prefer higher-level languages like Javascript, hence the popularity of Solidity on Ethereum.

Liu and his team developed sCrpyt as a high-level language on the Bitcoin blockchain. Unlike some of the alternatives on other chains, this one doesn’t require side chains, rollups, or layer twos; it runs directly on the blockchain. However, sCrypt is more than just a language; it’s a complete framework that also helps with recording and administering transactions.

Combined with the excellent SDKs and other developer resources being constantly developed, sCrypt has made developing on the BSV blockchain and other Bitcoin forks easier than ever.

OP_CAT is the next big thing for BTC

As Liu said earlier, Bitcoin had many opcodes when it was released. OP_CAT is one of them, and although it is very simple, it is widely misunderstood and it will have a domino effect once more developers learn about its powers. Ultimately, it enables developers to do anything they can on Ethereum, Solana, and other blockchains.

One example is the OP_CAT covenant. This enables Alice to send Bob transactions with conditions that determine how he can spend the coins, e.g., a parent could send a child coins with conditions on what they could spend them on.

Going further, Liu explains how recursive covenants will allow anyone to add ‘state’ to Bitcoin smart contracts. Following the logic OP_CAT—Covenant—Recursive Covenant—State, a global state machine is possible on Bitcoin.

In other words, OP_CAT enables BSV developers to write any kind of contract they can on Ethereum. As a more scalable option with much lower fees, it’s obvious what will happen in time.

To hear all this and more directly from the sCrypt founder himself, check out the seminar via this link.

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