A smart contract or transaction condition that prevents funds or actions from being executed until a specified time or block height is reached. It is used to enforce delays and to coordinate conditional payments.
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- A timelock restricts when a transaction or contract action can take effect, either until an absolute time or block height or for a relative period after an earlier event. Bitcoin provides this through opcodes such as CheckLockTimeVerify and CheckSequenceVerify.
- Timelocks are building blocks for protocols such as hash time-locked contracts and payment channels, where a delay gives parties a window to respond before funds become spendable.