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Transaction signatures are central to how Bitcoin Cash transactions are generally secured, preventing people other than the intended recipient of funds from spending them.
Bitcoin Cash signatures are created using asymmetric cryptography and involve generating a hash of the transaction and performing a signature operation using the sender’s private key.
Anyone with the corresponding public key can then verify the validity of the signature.
As described in Standard Scripts, the OP_CHECKSIG and related operations are used to validate signatures included in the unlocking script of a future transaction input.
However, there are a number of issues with signing a transaction that must be addressed:
Points (1) and (2) mean that if the signature is changed, the transaction’s hash will change.
Points (2) and (3) mean that the data that the signature hash preimage (i.e. the data that is hashed and signed) must not be the full transaction data.
In addition, because signatures relate only to a single input to a transaction (i.e. spending an unspent transaction output or UTXO) the may be multiple signatures in a transaction potentially created by different private keys, or even different people.
As a consequence of these factors, signatures have more parameters than may be immediately obvious, and the details of how signatures are generated can be, and have been, changed in a number of ways.
These parameters are encoded in the Hash Type.
In addition, as a part of BCH-UAHF (activated in block 478,559), the transaction signed format changed from the legacy Bitcoin Core (BTC) method to the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Signatures. In both cases, there is a signature preimage format (input) and a signature format (output).
Parameters that change the way a signature hash is generated are encoded in the hash type field.
This field (which is always included in the preimage), is contained in 4 bytes.
The two least significant bits have the following collective meaning:
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
0x01 |
SIGHASH_ALL. This is the default and indicates that all outputs are included in the signature preimage. |
0x02 |
SIGHASH_NONE. Indicates that no outputs are included in the signature preimage. |
0x03 |
SIGHASH_SINGLE. Indicates that only the output with the same index as the input the signature is being generated for will be included in the signature preimage. |
In conjunction with the above values, the higher-order bits act as a bitmask with the following meaning:
| Bit | Meaning |
|---|---|
0x00000040 |
SIGHASH_FORKID. If set, indicates that this signature is for a Bitcoin Cash transaction. Required following BCH-UAHF, to prevent transactions from being valid on both the BTC and BCH chains. |
0x00000080 |
SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY. Indicates that only information about the input the signature is for will be included, allowing other inputs to be added without impacting the signature for the current input. |
Combining these, there are 6 valid signature hash types in Bitcoin Cash. Only the least significant byte (LSB) is shown in binary, since the rest of the bits are zero.
| Signature hash type | Value (hex) | LSB (bin) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| SIGHASH_ALL | SIGHASH_FORKID | 0x00000041 | 0b01000001 | Signature applies to all inputs and outputs. |
| SIGHASH_NONE | SIGHASH_FORKID | 0x00000042 | 0b01000010 | Signature applies to all inputs and none of the outputs. |
| SIGHASH_SINGLE | SIGHASH_FORKID | 0x00000043 | 0b01000011 | Signature applies to all inputs and the output with the same index. |
| SIGHASH_ALL | SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY | SIGHASH_FORKID | 0x000000C1 | 0b11000001 | Signature applies to its own input and all outputs. |
| SIGHASH_NONE | SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY | SIGHASH_FORKID | 0x000000C2 | 0b11000010 | Signature applies to its own input and none of the outputs. |
| SIGHASH_SINGLE | SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY | SIGHASH_FORKID | 0x000000C3 | 0b11000011 | Signature applies to its own input and the output with the same index. |
In Bitcoin Cash, transaction signatures use the transaction digest algorithm described in a modification of BIP143, in order to minimize redundant data hashing in verification and to cover the input value by the signature.
At a high level, the preimage format for a signature within a single input is a serialization of the following transaction components, many of which are hashed, modified, or substituted depending on the context:
The following table specifies, in detail, the preimage format for a signature within a single input:
| Field | Length | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| transaction version | 4 bytes | unsigned integer(LE) | The value of transaction’s version field. |
| previous outputs hash | 32 bytes | hash(BE) | A double SHA-256 hash of the set of previous outputs spent by the inputs of the transaction. See Previous Outputs for the hash preimage format. If hash type is “ANYONECANPAY” then this is all 0x00 bytes. |
| sequence numbers hash | 32 bytes | hash(BE) | A double SHA-256 hash of the set of sequence numbers of the inputs of the transaction. See Sequence Numbers for the hash preimage format. If hash type is “ANYONECANPAY”, “SINGLE”, or “NONE” then this is all 0x00 bytes. |
| previous output hash | 32 bytes | hash(LE) | The transaction ID of the previous output being spent. |
| previous output index | 4 bytes | unsigned integer(LE) | The index of the output to be spent. |
| modified locking script length | variable | variable length integer | The number of bytes for modified_locking_script. |
| modified locking script | modified_locking_script_length bytes |
bytes(BE) | The subset of the locking script used for signing. See Modified Locking Script |
| previous output value | 8 bytes | unsigned integer(LE) | The value of the transaction output being spent. |
| input sequence number | 8 bytes | unsigned integer(LE) | The sequence number of the input this signature is for. |
| transaction outputs hash | 32 bytes | hash(BE) | A double SHA-256 hash of the outputs of the transaction. See Transaction Outputs for the hash preimage format. |
| transaction lock time | 4 bytes | unsigned integer(LE) | The lock time of the transaction. |
| hash type | 4 bytes | Hash Type(LE) | Flags indicating the rules for how this signature was generated. |
The double-SHA256-hash of the following data is used.
For each transaction input in the transaction, append the following information:
| Field | Length | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| previous transaction hash | 32 bytes | bytes(LE) | The hash of the transaction that generated the output to be spent. |
| output index | 4 bytes | unsigned integer(LE) | The index of the output to be spent from the specified transaction. |
The double-SHA256-hash of the following data is used.
For each transaction input in the transaction, append the following information:
| Field | Length | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| sequence number | 4 bytes | unsigned integer(LE) | The sequence number field of the transaction input. |
The locking script included in the signature preimage is, first, dependent on the type of locking script included in the previous output.
For non-P2SH outputs, the locking script itself is used.
However, for P2SH outputs, the redeem script is used instead.
Second, the selected script (locking script or redeem script) is modified as follows.
OP_CODESEPARATOR operation in the script preceding the expected signature-verification operation (e.g. OP_CHECKSIG).OP_CODESEPARATOR operations. This requirement was dropped with BCH-UAHF (activated in block 478,559).The resulting script is what is included in the signature preimage.
If the hash type is SIGHASH_NONE then the hash should be all 0x00 bytes.
If hash type is SIGHASH_SINGLE then only the output with the same index as the input being signed is included.
If no such output exists (i.e. there are fewer outputs than the index of the input to be signed), this is again all 0x00 bytes.
Otherwise, all outputs of the transaction should be signed (i.e. SIGHASH_ALL).
For each transaction output to be signed (per the hash mode), append the following information:
| Field | Length | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| value | 8 bytes | unsigned integer(LE) | The number of satoshis to be transferred. |
| locking script length | variable | variable length integer | The size of the locking script in bytes. |
| locking script | variable | bytes(BE) | The contents of the locking script. |
Depending on the signature algorithm used, the representation of the signature itself can vary.
BCH has always supported DER-encoded ECDSA signatures.
Since HF-20190515 it also supports Schnorr signatures for the CHECKSIG/CHECKDATASIG[VERIFY] operations, and since HF-20191115, Schnorr signatures are also supported for the CHECKMULTISIG[VERIFY] operations.
The specific format of the signature depends on the operation to be executed and the algorithm being used to generate the signature.
ECDSA signatures follow a strict DER encoding format, followed by the above hash type.
They are distinguished from Schnorr signatures by length, despite having a variable-length format (see Schorr signature format).
| Field | Length | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| magic number | 1 byte | byte | The magic number value: 0x30. |
| signature length | 1 byte | unsigned integer | The number of bytes to follow in the signature. |
| r | variable | DER-encoded integer | The ECDSA “r” value. |
| s | variable | DER-encoded integer | The ECDSA “s” value. |
| hash type | 1 byte | LSB of hash type | Indicates the parameters used to generate the pre-image for this signature. |
| Field | Length | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| integer header-byte | 1 byte | byte | The integer value indicator: 0x02. |
| value length | 1 byte | unsigned integer | The number of bytes used to encode the integer value. |
| value | value_length bytes |
unsigned integer(BE) | The integer value being encoded. This must be the smallest viable representation of the value being encoded. That is, the highest order byte may only be 0x00 if it is necessary to ensure the rest of the value is not interpreted as negative, in which case it is required.For example, the value may start with 0x0080 or 0x7F but not 0x80 or 0x007F. |
Schnorr signatures have a less variable format, though the hash type field is removed for OP_CHECKDATASIG.
This allows them to be easily distinguished from ECDSA signatures on length alone.
In fact, ECDSA signatures that happen to be the length of a Schnorr signature in the same context (though they should be extremely rare, with probability 2-49) should be re-generated to avoid being errantly treated as an invalid Schnorr signature.
| Field | Length | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| r | 32 bytes | unsigned integer(BE) | The Schorr “r” value. |
| s | 32 bytes | unsigned integer(BE) | The Schorr “s” value. |
| hash type | 0-1 bytes | LSB of hash type | Indicates the parameters used to generate the pre-image for this signature. Not included for OP_CHECKDATASIG signatures. |
Bitcoin Core signatures work very similarly to modern Bitcoin Cash signatures.
The primary difference is its different preimage format, as described in the following section.
Bitcoin Core preimages are generated using the following steps:
SIGHASH_SINGLE is used without a corresponding output, due to a bug, the entire preimage used for that signature becomes 0x0100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, and none of the following steps need performed.SIGHASH_FORKID should NOT be set.Bitcoin Core signatures follow the ECDSA signature format described above.