Currently with OP_CHECKMULTISIG we have the following N-of-M mechanics (legacy mechanics), illustrated by a 2-of-3 example:
- Locking script:
OP_2 pubkey_alice pubkey_bob pubkey_carol OP_3 OP_CHECKMULTISIG
- ScriptSig (N+1 pushes):
OP_0 sig_alice sig_carol
(OP_0 is the dummy element)
This is a rather bad mechanism, where sig_carol needs to be checked against both pubkey_bob and pubkey_carol. As discussed elsewhere, this is a disaster for Schnorr batch verification. So in the May 2019 upgrade, we're going to make it so that the signatures sig_alice and sig_carol are not allowed to be Schnorr signatures. I mean, we could allow them to be Schnorr and just use single-checking, but we have better plans in mind...
Schnorr signature aggregates (with OP_CHECKSIG) are really cool but they aren't a replacement for OP_CHECKMULTISIG. So, we need a new way that at least allows for batch verification.
Our goal is to make it so that all UTXOs can be spent with Schnorr, and that includes multisigs. It is unthi