What does the Covenants++ hardfork add to Kaspa?

The Covenants++ hardfork activates three protocol upgrades — KIP-16, KIP-17, and KIP-20 — in a single event. KIP-16 brings zero-knowledge proof verification into the consensus layer; KIP-17 adds covenant opcodes that let a transaction inspect its own contents; KIP-20 introduces consensus-tracked IDs for stateful contract tracking. Together, these three upgrades lay the foundational plumbing for programmable transaction rules and smart-contract-like behavior on Kaspa. For a beginner, this matters because it means Kaspa is gaining the technical capability to support complex programmable transactions without replacing its proof-of-work security model.