Roberto León

I posted about time-locking and was shocked how many... - didn't use it - didn't know about it - mistakenly thought they couldn't move their Bitcoin. Let me break it down at a high-level for you 👇 First, there are TWO types of time-locking. The 1st one is what you think it is (what it sounds like). But it's the second one I find more useful. ABSOLUTE TIME-LOCKING (CLTV) This is when you take any Bitcoin, or fraction of (technically a UTXO), and make it un-spendable until a future block. The 2nd one is what I'm referring to. This is... RELATIVE TIME-LOCKING (CSV) Think of this as locking additional KEYS into the future rather than your Bitcoin. Consider your current set-up - whether single, single with passphrase, or multi-sig - as your MAIN SPEND. Now consider an entirely new, different set-up - whether single, single with passphrase, or multi-sig - as your RECOVERY SPEND. Got it? Your main spend is available for you to spend whenever you want. BUT... what if you lose your keys? Or what if you die and your family can't find your keys? Well, your Recovery Spend set-up kicks in as an additional access to your Bitcoin. But this Recovery Spend won't kick in unless, and until, you haven't used your Main Spend key within a specified time period. Your Recovery Spend isn't valid and keeps getting pushed down into the future until, or unless, your Main Spend is no longer accessible. Here's a simple example (but the configurations are endless!): You have a typical 12-word single-sig setup. This is your Main Spend. But you then time-lock a Recover Spend for 6 months into the future with a completely separate set of 12-words. You then further define a Recovery Spend #2 as 12 months into the future with yet a third set of 12 words. Now... whenever you transact with your Main Spend, the two Recovery Spend paths you just set up continue to reset the clock. They keep getting pushed down 6 months and 12 months all over again. It's kinds of like a dead-man-switch. As long as there is activity, the recovery paths never take effect. Those two sets of keys can't access your Bitcoin. Someone can find them and nada happens. But... if you accidentally lose your key or die, your 1st Recovery Spend key(s) becomes active 6 months from the last time you spent from your Main Spend key. And then 12 months from the initial Main Spend transacting, the 2nd Recovery Spend becomes available. At that point ALL of these keys work. The key options EXPAND over time. You're adding MORE KEYS that can access your Bitcoin. You can also do the opposite and DECAY the keys rather than expand. So in the example above you can have 3 keys as your Main Spend, then have that decay to any 2 of those same keys as your 1st Recovery Spend, and then have any 1 of those keys as your 2nd Recovery Spend. This way if you have a multi-sig and you accidentally lost the quorum of 2-of-3 keys.... you can wait 12 months and it only takes any 1 of them. Now here's where it gets even better: You can also destroy your Main Spend in any of these set-ups, thus effectively time-locking yourself as there is no key at all to send/spend your Bitcoin in the present. This is the ultimate diamond hands. But because you have a Recovery Spend defined upon set-up, the key(s) you hold for that works at a future point in time (thus resembling Absolute Time-locking). Platforms like Liana or Nunchuk that use mini-script to write these simple If-This-Then-That smart contracts make this crazy easy with pretty sliders and buttons that make it dummy proof. Spin some new keys up and just try it. It's free. Even your desktop can spin up unlimited keys. And you can time-lock just a couple of weeks away to get the feel for it. Even a malicious actor can't get your Bitcoin with time-locking unless they can time travel. If you're a long-term holder I'd learn more about time-locking and see how it might benefit parts of your stack. Of course, multi-sig collaborative security is still one of the best set-ups there is, period. But learning how programmable aspects of Bitcoin work, like time-locking, is powerful for all kinds of use-cases. Satoshi wrote on January 10, 2009: "The [Bitcoin] network infrastructure can support a full range of escrow transactions and contracts." Time-locking is a good example of this functionality.