can a Blockchain move from utxo to account model? or opposite ?

[minda212121]

can a Blockchain move from utxo to account model? or opposite ?

[Cypra]

can a Blockchain move from utxo to account model? or opposite ?

Yes it's possible, it's not entirely impossible. If I recall successfully Cardano was hardforked into Account model from their UTXO model in 2021. So opposite would also be possibel. It's a huge pain to shift, so more often well stablished don't do such things.

[ABCbits]

At least for Bitcoin, moving to account model is probably impossible without breaking few things. For example, certain output (such as P2MS and P2PK) doesn't have address. If such output assigned to address by hashing the scriptpubkey and convert it to certain address format, i expect it would change exact script required to spend it.

can a Blockchain move from utxo to account model? or opposite ?

Yes it's possible, it's not entirely impossible. If I recall successfully Cardano was hardforked into Account model from their UTXO model in 2021.

You probably recall it incorrectly, since cardano website claim Cardano use extended UTXO.

Cardano uses the Extended UTXO (EUTXO) model to support multi-assets and smart contracts while maintaining UTXO's core advantages over account-based blockchains.

[Cypra]

You probably recall it incorrectly, since cardano website claim Cardano use extended UTXO.

Cardano uses the Extended UTXO (EUTXO) model to support multi-assets and smart contracts while maintaining UTXO's core advantages over account-based blockchains.

Extended UTXO and Account model is nearly similar. So that is why I mentioned it as a account model. Since they are supporting smart contract and smart contract is account model.

[FinneysTrueVision]

For a blockchain like Bitcoin it would be too drastic and unnecessary of a change that you would never have enough consensus to implement this change. Hard forks are extremely rare on Bitcoin and the account model has worse privacy because you use the same address for all transactions.

Also, Bitcoin isn’t trying to be a clone of Ethereum, so I don’t see any benefits to doing this. Similarly, I don’t see any major account based chains switching to Bitcoin’s model due to the impracticality of such a decision.

It might only be feasible on a zombie chain, where it would be easier to have users migrate to a completely redesigned network. It would be similar to how Binance had their original Binance Chain and everything gradually transitioned over to Binance Smart Chain.

[mcdouglasx]

can a Blockchain move from utxo to account model? or opposite ?

In theory, it could be done, but this wouldn't be practical for Bitcoin. It requires too many changes, and rather than advantages, it would bring problems with both privacy and trust. There are also high risks of technical and philosophical issues for Bitcoin. That's why the preferred approach is to design new chains with the desired model, where if something goes wrong, it has nothing to do with something already established as a large project.

Besides, why would Bitcoin want to do that?. But again, in practice, it is possible, but it's generally something that projects in their early stages would do.

[d5000]

If I'm interpreting it correctly, SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT would provide Bitcoin some "account"-like functionality. You could then pre-sign a transaction without specifying an UTXO which would be spent. If you sign a transaction with this sighash code, any UTXOs where your the signature of your address matches and which contains enough BTC would then be able to be spent.

Of course this doesn't provide the same smart contracting capabilities as the Ethereum script language, but it would be possible to simulate some more complex contracts and some "covenant" types (see this website), and also make possible the Eltoo mechanism for Lightning.

BIP-118 includes that proposal.