Topic: Is emtpy ScriptPubKey nonstandard or illegal? (Read 228 times)
It is non-standard but still valid. No consensus changes have been made regarding empty scriptPubKeys.
EDIT : To answer the question in the title, "nonstandard or illegal ?", this is the same : only standard scripts are legal.
Maybe the term "illegal" was an ambiguous term, my English was not helping me find a better word!
By "illegal" I mea whether the transaction containing an empty script would be invalid in a block. As you can see from the transaction I posted in OP it was perfectly possible in 2015 to have such transactions, I want to know if anything has changed.
BTW nonstandard means bitcoin-core nodes automatically reject these transactions and won't relay them. They are not breaking any rules though which is why they can exist in blocks.
If illegal, since when?
(If any readers are curious, here is an example: 8ec3e3dd39150798d71c61ffb7cc18ade6f2a2958378e18b7a98eefb709e7322 spent by f21b099d67070a7639d384f30e9b139bab58c27e47368a2d8152f05c14e187b7 which is the smallest tx record)
A script has to be standard or the transaction won't be accepted, this check is done with the isStandard() boolean function which will return false if the Solver function returns `TX_NONSTANDARD`.(If any readers are curious, here is an example: 8ec3e3dd39150798d71c61ffb7cc18ade6f2a2958378e18b7a98eefb709e7322 spent by f21b099d67070a7639d384f30e9b139bab58c27e47368a2d8152f05c14e187b7 which is the smallest tx record)
The `Solver()` function will return `TX_NONSTANDARD` if the script is not P2SH, or valid WITNESS, or OP_RETURN, or P2PK, or P2PKH. None of them can be empty, thus a transaction with an output containing an empty scriptPubkey will be non standard and thus not accepted (/illegal).
EDIT : To answer the question in the title, "nonstandard or illegal ?", this is the same : only standard scripts are legal.
I am not sure if this will help you any further but give it a try.
Have a look at this work by Peter Todd, RFC: empty scriptPubKeys and OP_RETURN for marking unspendable txouts
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2013-February/002159.html
I also found an older thread from 2015.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.11208171
Have a look at this work by Peter Todd, RFC: empty scriptPubKeys and OP_RETURN for marking unspendable txouts
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2013-February/002159.html
I also found an older thread from 2015.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.11208171
If illegal, since when?
(If any readers are curious, here is an example: 8ec3e3dd39150798d71c61ffb7cc18ade6f2a2958378e18b7a98eefb709e7322 spent by f21b099d67070a7639d384f30e9b139bab58c27e47368a2d8152f05c14e187b7 which is the smallest tx record)
(If any readers are curious, here is an example: 8ec3e3dd39150798d71c61ffb7cc18ade6f2a2958378e18b7a98eefb709e7322 spent by f21b099d67070a7639d384f30e9b139bab58c27e47368a2d8152f05c14e187b7 which is the smallest tx record)
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