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Bitcoin transactions involve locking funds in scripts, which can only be spent if those locking conditions are met. The part of the script that expresses these locking conditions are called ScriptPubKeys. On the other hand, the part that provides unlocking scripts to satisfy the locking conditions is referred to as ScriptSig for legacy transactions, and ScriptWitness for SegWit Transactions. These scripts are evaluated by a stack-based language called Script. This article will mainly focus on ScriptPubKeys.
As mentioned previously, ScriptPubKeys are scripts that embody the locking conditions of bitcoins in a Bitcoin transaction. They are a crucial element of a Bitcoin transaction that specifies the requirements that must be met before an unspent transaction output (UTXO) is used. The ScriptPubKey, combined with the Amount, creates an output of a Bitcoin transaction. Like every other script, ScriptPubKeys are made up of operators and data. During the encoding of a transaction, both data and the operands are represented in hexadecimal format. You can find the hex representation for all operands used in Bitcoin Scripts here.