Expand description

Miniscript and Output Descriptors

Introduction

Bitcoin Script

In Bitcoin, spending policies are defined and enforced by means of a stack-based programming language known as Bitcoin Script. While this language appears to be designed with tractable analysis in mind (e.g. there are no looping or jumping constructions), in practice this is extremely difficult. As a result, typical wallet software supports only a small set of script templates, cannot interoperate with other similar software, and each wallet contains independently written ad-hoc manually verified code to handle these templates. Users who require more complex spending policies, or who want to combine signing infrastructure which was not explicitly designed to work together, are simply out of luck.

Miniscript

Miniscript is an alternative to Bitcoin Script which eliminates these problems. It can be efficiently and simply encoded as Script to ensure that it works on the Bitcoin blockchain, but its design is very different. Essentially, a Miniscript is a monotone function (tree of ANDs, ORs and thresholds) of signature requirements, hash preimage requirements, and timelocks.

A full description of Miniscript is available here.

Miniscript also admits a more human-readable encoding.

Output Descriptors

While spending policies in Bitcoin are entirely defined by Script; there are multiple ways of embedding these Scripts in transaction outputs; for example, P2SH or Segwit v0. These different embeddings are expressed by Output Descriptors, which are described here

Examples

Deriving an address from a descriptor

use std::str::FromStr;

let desc = miniscript::Descriptor::<bitcoin::PublicKey>::from_str("\
    sh(wsh(or_d(\
    c:pk_k(020e0338c96a8870479f2396c373cc7696ba124e8635d41b0ea581112b67817261),\
    c:pk_k(0250863ad64a87ae8a2fe83c1af1a8403cb53f53e486d8511dad8a04887e5b2352)\
    )))\
    ").unwrap();

// Derive the P2SH address
assert_eq!(
    desc.address(bitcoin::Network::Bitcoin).unwrap().to_string(),
    "3CJxbQBfWAe1ZkKiGQNEYrioV73ZwvBWns"
);

// Check whether the descriptor is safe. This checks whether all spend paths are accessible in
// the Bitcoin network. It may be possible that some of the spend paths require more than 100
// elements in Wsh scripts or they contain a combination of timelock and heightlock.
assert!(desc.sanity_check().is_ok());

// Estimate the satisfaction cost
assert_eq!(desc.max_satisfaction_weight().unwrap(), 293);

Re-exports

pub use bitcoin;
pub use crate::descriptor::Descriptor;
pub use crate::interpreter::Interpreter;
pub use crate::miniscript::analyzable::AnalysisError;
pub use crate::miniscript::analyzable::ExtParams;
pub use crate::miniscript::decode::Terminal;
pub use crate::miniscript::satisfy::Preimage32;
pub use crate::miniscript::satisfy::Satisfier;
pub use crate::miniscript::hash256;
pub use crate::miniscript::Miniscript;

Modules

Output Descriptors
Function-like Expression Language
Interpreter
Abstract Syntax Tree
Script Policies
Partially-Signed Bitcoin Transactions

Macros

Macro for translation of associated types where the associated type is the same Handy for Derived -> concrete keys where the associated types are the same.
Macro for failing translation for other associated types. Handy for testing String -> concrete keys as we don’t want to specify these functions repeatedly.

Structs

Dummy keyhash which de/serializes to the empty string; useful for testing
Dummy keyhash which de/serializes to the empty string; useful for testing
Dummy key which de/serializes to the empty string; useful sometimes for testing
Dummy keyhash which de/serializes to the empty string; useful sometimes for testing
Dummy keyhash which de/serializes to the empty string; useful for testing
Dummy keyhash which de/serializes to the empty string; useful for testing

Enums

Bare ScriptContext To be used as raw script pubkeys In general, it is not recommended to use Bare descriptors as they as strongly limited by standardness policies.
The descriptor pubkey, either a single pubkey or an xpub.
Miniscript
Legacy ScriptContext To be used as P2SH scripts For creation of Bare scriptpubkeys, construct the Miniscript under Bare ScriptContext
Segwitv0 ScriptContext
Signature algorithm type
Tap ScriptContext

Traits

Either a key or keyhash, but both contain Pk Trait describing the ability to iterate over every key
Public key trait which can be converted to Hash type
The ScriptContext for Miniscript. Additional type information associated with miniscript that is used for carrying out checks that dependent on the context under which the script is used. For example, disallowing uncompressed keys in Segwit context
Trait describing public key types which can be converted to bitcoin pubkeys
Converts a descriptor using abstract keys to one using specific keys. Uses translator t to do the actual translation function calls.
Describes an object that can translate various keys and hashes from one key to the type associated with the other key. Used by the TranslatePk trait to do the actual translations.

Functions

The size of an encoding of a number in Script