```
  BIP: 54
  Layer: Consensus (soft fork)
  Title: Consensus Cleanup
  Authors: Antoine Poinsot <mail@antoinep.com>
           Matt Corallo <bips@bluematt.me>
  Status: Draft
  Type: Specification
  Assigned: 2025-04-11
  License: CC0-1.0
```

## Abstract

This document proposes new consensus rules in order to fix the timewarp attack, reduce the worst
case block validation time, prevent Merkle tree weaknesses, and avoid duplicate transactions without
[bip-0030][BIP30] validation.

## Motivation

This proposal addresses a number of long-standing vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the Bitcoin
protocol. Bundling these fixes together allows to overcome the fixed cost of deploying a Bitcoin
soft fork.

The timewarp bug permits a majority hashrate attacker to arbitrarily increase the block rate,
allowing them to steal block subsidy from future miners and increase validation costs to nodes that
have to deal with the increased average transaction rate. By strategically setting the block
timestamp, the [timewarp bug][SE timewarp] lets miners bring down the difficulty to its minimum
within 38 days of starting the attack. The existence of this bug not only significantly empowers a
51% attacker, but also makes it notably harder to reason about miners' incentives. It could indeed
be in the interest of short-sighted miners as well as short-sighted users to exploit this
vulnerability in a small enough proportion to increase the block rate without fatally hurting the
network, as the effectively increased block space would — all other things being equal — bring fee
rates down for users.

Specially crafted blocks may be expensive to process, with validation times ranging from a few
minutes up to more than an hour on lower-end devices. Long block validation times are a nuisance to
users, increasing the cost to independently fully validate the consensus rules. In addition they can
be used by miners to attack their competition, creating perverse incentives, centralization
pressures and leading to reduced network security.

In computing a block's Merkle root, a 64-byte transaction can be interpreted as an intermediate
node in the tree in addition to a leaf. This makes it possible to fake inclusion proofs by
pretending a 64-byte block transaction is an inner node, as well as to pretend the inner nodes on
one level of the tree are the actual block transactions.

Since [bip-0034][BIP34] activation, explicit [bip-0030][BIP30] validation is not necessary until
block height 1,983,702[^0].  Mandating new coinbase transactions be different from the early
[bip-0034][BIP34] violations makes it possible to get rid of [bip-0030][BIP30] validation forever.
Besides its unnecessary cost, another downside of [bip-0030][BIP30] validation is that it cannot be
performed by Utreexo clients. Finally, leveraging the coinbase transaction's `nLockTime` field
allows applications to recover the block height corresponding to a coinbase transaction without
having to parse Script.

## Specification

For all blocks after activation the following new rules apply.

Given a block at height `N`:
- if `N % 2016` is equal to 0, the timestamp of the block must be set to a value higher than or
  equal to the value of the timestamp of block at height `N-1` minus 7200 (T<sub>N</sub> &ge;
  T<sub>N−1</sub> − 7200);
- if `N % 2016` is equal to 2015, the timestamp of the block must be set to a value higher than
  or equal to the value of the timestamp of the block at height `N-2015` (T<sub>N</sub> &ge;
  T<sub>N−2015</sub>).

A limit is set on the number of potentially executed signature operations in validating a
transaction. It applies to all transactions in the block except the coinbase transaction[^1]. For
each input in the transaction, count the number of `CHECKSIG` and `CHECKMULTISIG` in the input
scriptSig and previous output's scriptPubKey, including the P2SH redeemScript. If the total summed
over all transaction inputs is strictly higher than 2500, the transaction is invalid. The accounting is the
same as for [bip-0016][BIP16 specs], evaluating the scriptSig, scriptPubKey, and P2SH redeemScript
separately:

1. `CHECKSIG` and `CHECKSIGVERIFY` count as 1 signature operation, whether or not they are evaluated.
2. `CHECKMULTISIG` and `CHECKMULTISIGVERIFY` immediately preceded by `OP_1` through `OP_16` are counted as 1 to 16 signature operations, whether or not they are evaluated.
3. All other `CHECKMULTISIG` and `CHECKMULTISIGVERIFY` are counted as 20 signature operations, whether or not they are evaluated.

Transactions whose witness-stripped serialized size is exactly 64 bytes are invalid.

The coinbase transaction's `nLockTime` field must be set to the height of the block minus 1[^2]
and its `nSequence` field must not be equal to 0xffffffff.

## Rationale

The restrictions on the timestamp of the first and last blocks of a difficulty adjustment period fix
the timewarp and Murch–Zawy vulnerabilities[^3]. The latter poses mostly theoretical concerns but is
extremely low risk to fix: the duration of an adjustment period has never been, and should never be,
negative. The former is fixed by preventing the timestamp of the first block of a difficulty period
from being lower than the previous block's, with a two-hour grace period. A [previous
proposal][BIP-XXXX] to fix timewarp used a ten-minute grace period instead, also adopted for
[testnet4][BIP94 timewarp]. Out of an abundance of caution and because it only trivially worsens the
block rate increase under attack, a two-hour grace period is used here[^4].

Disabling some Script operations and functionalities was [previously proposed][BIP-XXXX] to reduce
the worst case block validation time but was met with resistance due to confiscation concerns[^5]. A
delicate balance needs to be struck between minimizing the confiscation risks of a mitigation, even
if merely theoretical, and bounding the costs one could impose on all other users of the system. To
this effect a limit on the number of potentially executed signature operations pinpoints exactly the
harmful behaviour, leaving maximum flexibility in how Script functionalities may have been used.
Such a limit reduces the worst case block validation time by a factor of 40 and drastically
increases the preparation cost of an attack to make it uneconomical for a miner[^6]. The maximum of
2500 was chosen as the tightest value that did not make any non-pathological standard transaction
invalid[^7].

In the presence of 64-byte transactions a block header's Merkle root may be valid for different sets
of transactions. This is because in the Merkle tree construction a 64-byte transaction may be
interpreted as the catenation of two 32-byte hashes, or the catenation of two 32-byte hashes may be
interpreted as a transaction. The former allows to fake a block inclusion proof and the latter makes
it such that for a valid block the Merkle root in the block header is not a unique identifier for
the corresponding list of valid transactions[^8]. 64-byte transactions can only contain a
scriptPubKey that lets anyone spend the funds, or one that burns them. 64-byte transactions have
also been non-standard since 2019. It was suggested that the known vulnerabilities could instead be
mitigated by committing to the Merkle tree depth in the header's version field[^9]. The authors
believe it is preferable to address the root cause by invalidating 64-byte transactions. This
approach also fixes the vulnerability without developers of SPV verifiers having to implement the
mitigation or to know it is necessary in the first place.

Several blocks prior to [bip-0034][BIP34] activation contain a coinbase transaction whose scriptSig
contains a valid [bip-0034][BIP34] commitment to a future block height. This offers an opportunity
to duplicate these coinbase transactions in the future[^10] and for this reason [bip-0030][BIP30]
validation will need to be re-activated from block 1,983,702. A simple way to prevent this is to
mandate that future coinbase transactions vary from coinbase transactions before [bip-0034][BIP34]
activation. There are multiple ways of achieving this, but setting and enforcing the timelock for
the coinbase transaction makes it so all coinbase transactions past Consensus Cleanup activation
could not have been valid before this height and therefore cannot be a duplicate[^11].

## Backward compatibility

This proposal only tightens the block validation rules: there is no block that is valid under the
rules proposed in this BIP but not under the existing Bitcoin consensus rules. As a consequence
these changes are backward-compatible with non-upgraded node software. That said, the authors
strongly encourage node operators to upgrade in order to fully validate all consensus rules.

## Miner forward compatibility

Bitcoin Core version [29.0][Core 29.0] and later will not generate a block template that violates
the timestamp restrictions introduced in this BIP. Although it would be extremely unlikely due to
the grace period used in this proposal, miners should use the `curtime` or `mintime` field from the
`getblocktemplate` result for their block's timestamp to make sure they always create blocks valid
according to this proposal. Note this is not a new requirement: using a timestamp lower than the
`mintime` field from the `getblocktemplate` result already leads to creating an invalid block.

Bitcoin Core version [30.0][Core 30.0] and later will not generate a block template including a
transaction that violates the signature operations limit introduced in this BIP.

Bitcoin Core version [0.16.1][Core 0.16.1] and later will neither relay nor create block templates
that include 64-byte transactions.

The coinbase transaction is usually crafted by mining pool software. To the best of the authors'
knowledge, there does not exist an open source reference broadly in use today for such software.
We encourage mining pools to update their software to craft coinbase transactions that are
forward-compatible with the changes proposed in this BIP.

## Reference implementation

An implementation of BIP54 for Bitcoin Core is available [here][inquisition-implem].

## Test vectors

Documented test vectors are available [here](./bip-0054/test_vectors/) for all mitigations
introduced in this BIP.

## Acknowledgements

This document builds upon an [earlier proposal][BIP-XXXX] by Matt Corallo.

The authors would like to thank everyone involved in researching the most appropriate mitigation for
each of these bugs. We would like to thank in particular Anthony Towns and Sjors Provoost for their
direct contributions to this proposal, as well as @0xb10c and Brian Groll for providing the authors
with data to analyze the proposed mitigations. Thanks to Chris Stewart for digging up historical
violations to the new transaction size rule, which are partially reused in this BIP's test vectors.

## Copyright

This document is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license.


[^0]: Block 1,983,702 is the earliest future block which could contain a duplicate coinbase
transaction while still respecting [bip-0034][BIP34]. See [this post][Delving duplicable] for a list
of all such future blocks.
[^1]: Technically this limit *cannot* apply to a coinbase transaction as the size of its sole
input's scriptSig is limited.
[^2]: The locktime validation, which is also performed for coinbase transactions, enforces that the
nLockTime value is the last block at which a transaction is invalid, not the first one at which it
is valid.
[^3]: The timewarp attack is described [here][SE timewarp] and the Murch–Zawy attack [here][Delving
Murch-Zawy].
[^4]: The testnet4 difficulty exception pushed blocks' timestamps in the future when abused,
revealing how some broken pool software may produce blocks that don't respect a 10 minutes grace
period. Some [raised concerns][Sjors grace period] similarly broken software might be used on
mainnet. Using a grace period of 2 hours instead of 10 minutes only reduces the expected block
interval time under attack by ~2.2 seconds. See [this post][grace period debate summary] for more.
[^5]: The argument is about someone having a timelocked presigned transaction using some of those
features in its output script. The transaction cannot be mined before activation. Such outputs would
not be covered by an amnesty for old UTxOs. See for instance [here][O'Connor OP_CODESEPARATOR] and
[here][O'Connor sighash type] for discussions on this topic.
[^6]: It is important to reduce the worst case block validation time as well as the ratio of
validation time imposed over preparation cost. The former is to limit the damages an externally
motivated attacker can do. The latter is to disincentivize miners slowing down their competition by
mining expensive blocks. See [this thread][ML thread validation time] for more.
[^7]: A non-pathological transaction would have a public key per signature operation and at least
one signature per input. Per standardness a single P2SH input may not have more than 15 signature
operations. Even by using 1-of-15 `CHECKMULTISIG`s a transaction would bump against the maximum
standard transaction size before running into the newly introduced limit. To run against the newly
introduced limit but not the transaction size a transaction would need to spend P2SH inputs with a
redeem script similar to `CHECKSIG DROP CHECKSIG DROP ...`. This type of redeem script serves no
purpose beyond increasing its validation cost, which is exactly what this proposal aims to mitigate.
[^8]: See [this writeup][Suhas Merkle] by Suhas Daftuar for an explanation as well as a discussion
of the consequences.
[^9]: By Sergio Demian Lerner in a [blog post][Sergio post] surfaced [by Eric Voskuil][Eric
version]. Eric also pushed back against the importance of fixing this issue. See [this post][64
bytes debate] for an attempt at summarizing the arguments for both sides of this debate.
[^10]: See [here][BIP34 list] for a full list of the heights of historical blocks including a valid
bip-0034 height commitment and the corresponding future block height.
[^11]: Technically it could be argued a duplicate could in principle always be possible before block
31,001 when `nLockTime` enforcement [was originally soft-forked][Harding nLockTime]. But treating
coinbase transactions as not having duplicate past Consensus Cleanup activation would be consistent
for any implementation which enforces `nLockTime` from the genesis block, which is the behaviour
notably of Bitcoin Core but also of all other implementations the authors are aware of.

[BIP30]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0030.mediawiki
[BIP-XXXX]: https://github.com/TheBlueMatt/bips/blob/7f9670b643b7c943a0cc6d2197d3eabe661050c2/bip-XXXX.mediawiki
[BIP34]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0034.mediawiki
[BIP16 specs]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0016.mediawiki#specification
[SE timewarp]: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/75831/what-is-time-warp-attack-and-how-does-it-work-in-general/75834#75834
[Delving Murch-Zawy]: https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/zawy-s-alternating-timestamp-attack/1062#variant-on-zawys-attack-2
[BIP94 timewarp]: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0094.mediawiki#user-content-Time_Warp_Fix
[Sjors grace period]: https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/timewarp-attack-600-second-grace-period/1326
[grace period debate summary]: https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/great-consensus-cleanup-revival/710/66
[O'Connor OP_CODESEPARATOR]: https://gnusha.org/pi/bitcoindev/CAMZUoKneArC+YZ36YFwxNTKsDtJhEz5P2cosXKxJS8Rf_3Nyuw@mail.gmail.com
[O'Connor sighash type]: https://gnusha.org/pi/bitcoindev/CAMZUoK=1kgZLR1YZ+cJgzwmEOwrABYFs=2Ri=xGX=BCr+w=VQw@mail.gmail.com
[ML thread validation time]: https://gnusha.org/pi/bitcoindev/VsltJ2PHqWfzG4BU9YETTXjL7fYBbJhjVXKZQyItemySIA1okvNee9kf0zAOyLMeJ4Nqv1VOrYbWns5nP4TANCWvPJYu1ew_yxQSaudizzk=@protonmail.com
[Suhas Merkle]: https://gnusha.org/pi/bitcoindev/CAFp6fsGtEm9p-ZQF_XqfqyQGzZK7BS2SNp2z680QBsJiFDraEA@mail.gmail.com
[Sergio post]: https://bitslog.com/2018/06/09/leaf-node-weakness-in-bitcoin-merkle-tree-design
[Eric version]: https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/great-consensus-cleanup-revival/710/37
[64 bytes debate]: https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/great-consensus-cleanup-revival/710/41
[BIP34 list]: https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/great-consensus-cleanup-revival/710/4
[Harding nLockTime]: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/90229/nlocktime-in-bitcoin-core
[Delving duplicable]: https://delvingbitcoin.org/t/great-consensus-cleanup-revival/710/4
[Core 0.16.1]: https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/0.16.1
[Core 29.0]: https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/29.0
[inquisition-implem]: https://github.com/darosior/bitcoin/tree/2509_inquisition_consensus_cleanup
[Core 30.0]: https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/30.0
