Commit and reveal

Commit and reveal. An Atomicals operation is created in two Bitcoin transactions. The commit transaction pays to a Taproot output whose script contains the operation envelope. The reveal transaction spends that output and exposes the envelope in its witness. A validator reads the revealed envelope, applies the operation, and assigns the resulting Atomical to the reveal transaction's output zero.

Commit and reveal

An Atomicals operation is created in two Bitcoin transactions. The commit transaction pays to a Taproot output whose script contains the operation envelope. The reveal transaction spends that output and exposes the envelope in its witness. A validator reads the revealed envelope, applies the operation, and assigns the resulting Atomical to the reveal transaction's output zero.

Why two transactions

Bitcoin script cannot carry arbitrary data cheaply in a way that stays hidden until spend time. Taproot script path spending can. The commit transaction pays into an output that commits to a script without revealing it. The reveal transaction spends that output and publishes the script in the witness, where the envelope becomes visible.

The steps

1. Build the envelope: the atom marker, the operation code, and the CBOR payload.
2. Derive a Taproot output that commits to a script containing that envelope.
3. If the operation requires commit Bitwork, grind the commit transaction until its transaction id satisfies the requirement.
4. Broadcast the commit transaction, funded well enough to cover the reveal.
5. Build the reveal transaction spending that output, with the envelope in the witness.
6. If the operation requires reveal Bitwork, grind the reveal transaction the same way.
7. Broadcast the reveal transaction.
8. Wait for confirmation, then for a validator to index that height.

What can go wrong between the steps

Problem	Symptom	What to do
Commit funded, reveal never broadcast	Value sits in a Taproot output only your key material can spend	Rebuild and broadcast the reveal with the same key material
Reveal underfunded	Reveal rejected by mempool policy	Increase the commit amount and start again
Bitwork requirement misread	Reveal rejected by the validator, not by Bitcoin	Re-read the deployment and grind again
Race for a limited mint	Reveal confirms but the quota is already full	The mint is invalid. The Bitcoin transaction still cost a fee
Name already resolved	Reveal confirms as a losing candidate	See candidates and winners

A confirmed reveal is not a successful mint

Every row above except the first produces a confirmed Bitcoin transaction. Confirmation costs money and proves nothing about validity. Check the validator result, not a block explorer.

Fees

You pay two fees. The commit fee is ordinary. The reveal fee depends on witness size, which grows with your payload, so embedding a large file makes the reveal expensive. Estimate before you grind, not after.

The reference CLI accepts --satsbyte on the commands that build these transactions. See the CLI reference.