Is it possible to make an output only spendable to a specific address?

Basically, the entire question fits into the title. Does the Bitcoin scripting language allow for a transaction output to only be spendable to a specific address? Is it possible to forbid all other spends? Is it possible to dictate that only that spend over a specified amount of money can happen such that the transaction fees cannot be chosen arbitrarily large?

If so, I suppose it's also possible to design an output script in such a way that it can be spent to a specific address (and only to this specific address) when a signature by a specific party is present, but to arbitrary addresses if that party's signature and also that of a specific other party is present. Should this for any reason not be possible, please let me know. This is what I'm mainly interested in.

UTF-8

Posted 2018-01-03T14:06:04.137

Reputation: 2 941

I'm not sure if I'm getting exactly what you ask for, but whats the problem with a standard P2PKH script? There you are creating a script that can be spent only by that address. – sr-gi – 2018-01-03T16:42:03.377

@sr-gi I'm asking whether you can design the UTXO's script in such a way that it is spendable only in such a way that the resulting UTXO belongs to a specific address. – UTF-8 – 2018-01-03T17:14:35.097

Oh, I get it, you mean that the UTXO would be spendable by anyone, by the resulting one of spending it will belong to an specific address. Am I right? – sr-gi – 2018-01-03T17:16:50.413

Perhaps some context will help. What are you trying to do? Are you trying to show someone earnest money, or something like that? – 4276 – 2018-01-03T18:06:52.730

Answers

No it is not possible to make an output that is only spendable to a specific address. Outputs that are spent have no effect on the outputs of the spending transaction. They are completely separate and independent on each other except for the amount that was spent.

An output's script only defines what the input script must be, and the input script has no effect on the output scripts of that transaction.

Andrew Chow

Posted 2018-01-03T14:06:04.137

Reputation: 40 910

As far as I know, the answer is no.

What you are suggesting would imply that an UTXO could affect the conditions in which the output of a transaction spending it would be built, but it can only affect how the input is built.

UTXOs can define how they should be spent, but no how the resulting UTXO spending it will be created.

sr-gi

Posted 2018-01-03T14:06:04.137

Reputation: 2 382