optional
depends on: NUT-10
This NUT describes Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) which is one kind of spending condition based on NUT-10's well-known Secret
. Using P2PK, we can lock ecash tokens to a receiver's ECC public key and require a Schnorr signature with the corresponding private key to unlock the ecash. The spending condition is enforced by the mint.
Caution: If the mint does not support this type of spending condition, proofs may be treated as a regular anyone-can-spend tokens. Applications need to make sure to check whether the mint supports a specific kind of spending condition by checking the mint's info endpoint.
NUT-10 Secret kind: P2PK
If for a Proof
, Proof.secret
is a Secret
of kind P2PK
, the proof must be unlocked by providing a witness Proof.witness
and one or more valid signatures in the array Proof.witness.signatures
.
In the basic case, when spending a locked token, the mint requires one valid Schnorr signature in Proof.witness.signatures
on Proof.secret
by the public key in Proof.Secret.data
.
To give a concrete example of the basic case, to mint a locked token we first create a P2PK Secret
that reads:
[
"P2PK",
{
"nonce": "859d4935c4907062a6297cf4e663e2835d90d97ecdd510745d32f6816323a41f",
"data": "0249098aa8b9d2fbec49ff8598feb17b592b986e62319a4fa488a3dc36387157a7",
"tags": [["sigflag", "SIG_INPUTS"]]
}
]
Here, Secret.data
is the public key of the recipient of the locked ecash. We serialize this Secret
to a string in Proof.secret
and get a blind signature by the mint that is stored in Proof.C
(see NUT-03]).
The recipient who owns the private key of the public key Secret.data
can spend this proof by providing a signature on the serialized Proof.secret
string that is then added to Proof.witness.signatures
:
{
"amount": 1,
"secret": "[\"P2PK\",{\"nonce\":\"859d4935c4907062a6297cf4e663e2835d90d97ecdd510745d32f6816323a41f\",\"data\":\"0249098aa8b9d2fbec49ff8598feb17b592b986e62319a4fa488a3dc36387157a7\",\"tags\":[[\"sigflag\",\"SIG_INPUTS\"]]}]",
"C": "02698c4e2b5f9534cd0687d87513c759790cf829aa5739184a3e3735471fbda904",
"id": "009a1f293253e41e",
"witness": "{\"signatures\":[\"60f3c9b766770b46caac1d27e1ae6b77c8866ebaeba0b9489fe6a15a837eaa6fcd6eaa825499c72ac342983983fd3ba3a8a41f56677cc99ffd73da68b59e1383\"]}"
}
To spend a token locked with P2PK
, the spender needs to include signatures in the spent proofs. We use libsecp256k1
's serialized 64 byte Schnorr signatures on the SHA256 hash of the message to sign. The message to sign is the field Proof.secret
in the inputs. If indicated by Secret.tags.sigflag
in the inputs, outputs might also require signatures on the message BlindedMessage.B_
.
An ecash spending operation like swap and melt can have multiple inputs and outputs. If we have more than one input or output, we provide signatures in each Proof
and BlindedMessage
individually. The inputs are the Proofs
provided in the inputs
field and the outputs are the BlindedMessages
in the outputs
field in the request body (see PostMeltRequest
in NUT-05 and PostSwapRequest
in NUT-03).
More complex spending conditions can be defined in the tags in Proof.tags
. All tags are optional. Tags are arrays with two or more strings being ["key", "value1", "value2", ...]
.
Supported tags are:
sigflag: <str>
determines whether outputs have to be signed as welln_sigs: <int>
specifies the minimum number of valid signatures expectedpubkeys: <hex_str>
are additional public keys that can provide signatures (allows multiple entries)locktime: <int>
is the Unix timestamp of when the lock expiresrefund: <hex_str>
are optional refund public keys that can exclusively spend afterlocktime
(allows multiple entries)
Note: The tag serialization type is [<str>, <str>, ...]
but some tag values are int
. Wallets and mints must cast types appropriately for de/serialization.
Signature flags are defined in the tag Secret.tags['sigflag']
. Currently, there are two signature flags.
SIG_INPUTS
requires valid signatures on all inputs. It is the default signature flag and will be applied even if thesigflag
tag is absent.SIG_ALL
requires valid signatures on all inputs and on all outputs.
The signature flag SIG_ALL
is enforced if at least one of the Proofs
have the flag SIG_ALL
. Otherwise, SIG_INPUTS
is enforced.
Signatures must be provided in the field Proof.witness.signatures
for each Proof
which is an input. If the signature flag SIG_ALL
is enforced, signatures must also be provided for every output in its field BlindedMessage.witness.signatures
.
A Proof
(an input) with a signature P2PKWitness.signatures
on secret
is the JSON (see NUT-00):
{
"amount": <int>,
"secret": <str>,
"C": <hex_str>,
"id": <str>,
"witness": <P2PKWitness | str> // Signatures on "secret"
}
The secret
of each input is signed as a string.
A BlindedMessage
(an output) with a signature P2PKWitness.signatures
on B_
is the JSON (see NUT-00):
{
"amount": <int>,
"B_": <hex_str>,
"witness": <P2PKWitness | str> // Signatures on "B_"
}
The B_
of each output is signed as bytes which comes from the original hex string.
P2PKWitness
is a serialized JSON string of the form
{
"signatures": <Array[<hex_str>]>
}
The signatures
are an array of signatures in hex. The witness for a spent proof can be obtained with a Proof
state check (see NUT-07).
If the tag n_sigs
is a positive integer, the mint will also consider signatures from public keys specified in the pubkeys
tag additional to the public key in Secret.data
. If the number of valid signatures is greater or equal to the number specified in n_sigs
, the transaction is valid.
Expressed as an "n-of-m" scheme, n = n_sigs
is the number of required signatures and m = 1 ("data" field) + len(pubkeys tag)
is the number of public keys that could sign.
If the tag locktime
is the unix time and the mint's local clock is greater than locktime
, the Proof
becomes spendable by anyone, except if the following condition is also true. Note: A Proof
is considered spendable by anyone if it only requires a secret
and a valid signature C
to be spent (which is the default case).
If the locktime
is in the past and a tag refund
is present, the Proof
is spendable only if a valid signature by one of the the refund
pubkeys is provided in Proof.witness.signatures
and, depending on the signature flag, in BlindedMessage.witness.signatures
.
This is an example secret
that locks a Proof
with a Pay-to-Pubkey (P2PK) condition that requires 2-of-3 signatures from the public keys in the data
field and the pubkeys
tag. If the timelock
has passed, the Proof
becomes spendable with a single signature from the public key in the refund
tag. The signature flag sigflag
indicates that signatures are necessary on the inputs
and the outputs
of a transaction.
[
"P2PK",
{
"nonce": "da62796403af76c80cd6ce9153ed3746",
"data": "033281c37677ea273eb7183b783067f5244933ef78d8c3f15b1a77cb246099c26e",
"tags": [
["sigflag", "SIG_ALL"],
["n_sigs", "2"],
["locktime", "1689418329"],
[
"refund",
"033281c37677ea273eb7183b783067f5244933ef78d8c3f15b1a77cb246099c26e"
],
[
"pubkeys",
"02698c4e2b5f9534cd0687d87513c759790cf829aa5739184a3e3735471fbda904",
"023192200a0cfd3867e48eb63b03ff599c7e46c8f4e41146b2d281173ca6c50c54"
]
]
}
]
The following use cases are unlocked using P2PK:
- Publicly post locked ecash that can only be redeemed by the intended receiver
- Final offline-receiver payments that can't be double-spent when combined with an offline signature check mechanism like DLEQ proofs
- Receiver of locked ecash can defer and batch multiple mint round trips for receiving proofs (requires DLEQ)
- Ecash that is owned by multiple people via the multisignature abilities
- Atomic swaps when used in combination with the locktime feature