Turing-Complete

Understanding Turing-Complete

Turing complete refers to the capability of a system to perform tasks that are similar to those performed by a Turing machine, which is a theoretical machine developed by mathematician Alan Turing.

Most of the computer programming languages that are used today are considered to be Turing complete. However, it is not necessary for blockchains to meet this requirement.

For example, Solidity, the programming language that is used for writing Ethereum smart contracts, is Turing complete. On the other hand, languages that are not Turing complete have certain limitations that restrict their ability to solve different computational problems.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is not Turing complete by design. This is because it was primarily created as a cryptocurrency and only supports basic functionalities such as value transfers.

One important aspect of a Turing-complete language is the presence of loops, which allow the programming language to execute a set of instructions repeatedly.

Bitcoin’s scripting language does not have this capability. This decision was made to prevent spam and network overload.