Glossary

Miniscript

1 min read

Miniscript is a language that makes it easier for developers to read, write, and reason about Bitcoin smart contracts.

To give a few examples of what Miniscript enables:

  • It can find the most economical script to implement a combination of spending conditions, to help the user save on fees.
  • It can be used to create scripts within scripts, like a multisig within a multisig.
  • It makes it easier to identify the exact spending conditions of a script.
  • It makes it easier to determine what fee will need to be paid to spend a specific UTXO.

With that said, the actual use of Miniscript by application developers is still relatively new, as they are beginning to explore how this language can be used.

Miniscript was designed to work for (P2SH-)P2WSH and Tapscript embedded scripts.

More in-depth technical information can be found at bitcoin.sipa.be/miniscript/

Related Terms
Bitcoin Script
Script is the language Bitcoin uses to determine who can spend a given piece of bitcoin (a UTXO). Script is intentionally limited in order to maintain Bitcoin's simplicity and ensure that any individual can run a node and validate the blockchain.
Learn more.
Pay-to-Witness-Script-Hash (P2WSH)
A Pay-to-Witness-Script-Hash (P2WSH) is a type of transaction similar to a P2SH transaction in most ways, except that it uses SegWit.
Learn more.
BIP 342 (Tapscript)
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 342 defines Tapscript, an update to Bitcoin’s scripting language. Tapscript enables Bitcoin nodes to create and validate Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR) outputs by upgrading the opcodes Bitcoin uses to evaluate scripts.
Learn more.
Explore More Terms →