A long-standing proposal to bring "smart" smart deals to Bitcoin's main network has taken a step closer to implementation.

Developers submitted an extraction request for abstract syntax trees (MAST), marking the first time that this smart contract proposal has been the subject of a tensile demand seeking its integration into the bitcoin code.

The draw query combines the pay-to-script (P2SH) hash with MERKLE-BRANCH-VERIFY, allowing users to set the payment method. As previously reported by CoinDesk, these two features, combined with a third Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) called "Tail-App Execution Semantics," would allow users to create smart contracts privately on the bitcoin network.

These private smart contracts would allow users to set their own criteria for processing a payment, which would take into account several factors in the program. Smart contracts would then run alone.

The combination of BIP would also store these compact contracts compactly on the actual bitcoin blockchain, which means they would not take up much block space, or the amount of data that can be stored in each block of transactions.

If developers and the wider bitcoin community approve the change, it could be added to bitcoin by means of a soft fork. Should they also approve the change, the developers would use a soft fork to integrate it into the network.

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