Bitcoin OP_CAT update isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, BitVM Creator argues

The Bitcoin developer community has spent several months singing the praises of OP_CAT – a proposed soft fork exchange that many believe is the next evolution of Bitcoin.

BitVM creator Robin Linus has his reservations, but on Thursday he published an article debunking perceived misconceptions about the widely touted switch.

OP_CAT is the future of Bitcoin?

The developer’s post, titled “Preventing the CATastrophe,” argued that OP_CAT may introduce risks to Bitcoin that advocates tend to downplay. “My goal is not to argue for or against op_cat, but to debunk these misconceptions and steer the discussion toward a more rational, fact-based analysis,” he wrote.

One includes the introduction of new programs that could greatly alter the incentives of Bitcoin miners and the security of the entire network.

“The design space for op_cat-based DeFi applications on Bitcoin is largely unexplored, and we cannot foresee all the innovations that might emerge and how they affect MEV (Maximum Minable Value),” Linus said.

OP_CAT is an old Bitcoin opcode that was originally created to combine or “concatenate” two pieces of data. It was removed by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010 due to security concerns, but was reintroduced in 2023 via BIP 347 as a way to allow it to handle more complex data structures, such as Merkle trees, and substantially improve its functionality .

On the other hand, many value Bitcoin’s simple code and resistance to change as a beacon of its safety and purity. As such, supporters of OP_CAT often point out how the change only involves 10 lines of new code and simply reintroduces old technology, thereby minimizing its attack vectors.

“Just because you can’t immediately exploit those 10 lines doesn’t mean op_cat doesn’t interfere with the larger system and its incentive structures,” countered Linus. “Since it is impossible to predict all the consequences of enabling op_cat, we cannot confidently assert its safety.”

Pacts on Bitcoin?

One of the most touted advantages of OP_CAT is its ability to introduce pacts (conditional payments) into Bitcoin. Linus argued that OP_CAT-based pacts would be “inefficient in terms of block space and transaction fees” and that other opcode proposals would be better suited for this purpose.

In a message to CryptoPotato, popular OP_CAT supporter Bob Bodily, co-founder and CEO of Bioniq, agreed with Linus in his particular criticisms of the pacts. “There are better covenant proposals (CTVs) that have been violently shut down in recent years, while CAT has broader support for the Bitcoin ecosystem,” he added.

One of the most popular use cases for proposed pacts would be to enable trustless Bitcoin bridges, allowing Bitcoin to move to other blockchains and L2 networks in a truly decentralized manner. Instead of relying on this, Linus and several colleagues recently published the “BitVM2” white paper, which describes a method for creating trust-minimized Bitcoin bridges without any changes to Bitcoin Core.

According to Bodily, however, OP_CAT is a “lower-level primitive” that offers much more than pacts, including functionality that would help build Linus.

“Take the BitVM (or BitVM2) model and CAT does much better,” he wrote. “More efficient. cheaper More flexible. I don’t know why Robin is openly against the CAT like this because everything he is doing would improve.”

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