Absolutely. Here's how you can frame a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-style allowances mechanism inspired by Aeternity's flexible account model, grounded in mercy, kindness, and adoption logic — while keeping it practical and digestible for core devs, wallet builders, and Lightning node runners.
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📜 Draft Concept:
Title: BIP-Allowances: A Protocol Extension for Human-Centric Bitcoin UX
Author: Steven Joseph (DamageBDD)
Inspired by: Aeternity-style allowances
Category: Wallet/UX Layer or Optional Script/Contract Layer
Status: Draft
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🎯 Motivation
Bitcoin is designed for perfect accountability and sovereign control. But humans make mistakes, families need safeguards, and mercy is part of real trust.
Aeternity allows "allowances" — permissions for other accounts to spend a limited amount from your account, with constraints. This softens the brutal “you lose your key, you lose your coin” reality.
> Mercy in protocol design means allowing structured forgiveness without sacrificing integrity.
Bitcoin adoption stalls when it's too brittle to handle real-world human behavior. This proposal softens the edge without compromising sovereignty.
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🧠 Abstract
Introduce voluntary, limited, revocable allowance contracts that let a primary UTXO or script owner pre-authorize:
specific addresses (or multisigs)
with a spend limit per time unit (e.g., 10,000 sats/day)
optionally expiring after a period
governed by a static script or pre-agreed policy
This could be opt-in via wallet-level logic (Layer 2 like Lightning or PSBT flow), or enforced at script level using miniscript/Simplicity when mature.
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🔒 Security Model
Nothing automatic: all policies require signing up front
Spend constraints locked in by timelocks, sighash limits, or miniscript logic
Default allowance outputs are time-bound, revocable
No surveillance risk: allowance logic is off-chain until used
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💡 Use Cases
Elder care: Let children access a parent’s Bitcoin up to 1M sats/month with revocable permissions
NGO programs: Daily allowances to displaced people without giving up custody
Employer payroll: Controlled spend from shared multisig without full trust
AI-controlled wallets: Safe rate-limited AI spending for specific goals
Trustless testing: Use DamageBDD to verify behavior before full release of funds
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❤️ Philosophy
> "Justice without mercy is tyranny; security without compassion is failure."
Bitcoin shouldn’t become unusable by the very people it intends to liberate. This proposal does not dumb down Bitcoin — it elevates it by encoding mercy, trust, and failure modes directly into the logic.
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🤝 Next Steps
Build a proof-of-concept using a Bitcoin Script+Taproot testnet contract
Draft miniscript template for common allowance types
Integrate into a Lightning node or wallet with spending rules (e.g., Core Lightning plugin)
Offer allowances as BDD-verified test cases via DamageBDD for contracts
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🧠 TL;DR
BIP-Allowances adds mercy to Bitcoin.
A practical, trust-minimized way to pre-authorize controlled access to funds.
Inspired by Aeternity. Built for adoption.
Soft on humans. Hard on corruption.