Skip to content

Schnorr Signatures#

There are several use-cases where you might need to verify a Schnorr signature on-chain.

This page describes how to do so in ErgoScript.

Initial Setup#

Ergo uses the same curve as Bitcoin (Secp256k1), which we call G.

The curve also defines a default generator g.

  1. Secret key is integer x
  2. Public key is Y = gx, an element of G

Signing#

Let the hash of the message to be signed be M. The signature is computed as follows:

  1. Generate a random integer r and compute U = gr.
  2. Compute the integer c = Hash(U || M)
  3. Compute s = r - cx.
  4. Send the value (c, s) to the verifier as the "signature"

Note that the signature is a pair of integers.

Verification#

Schnorr Identification#

To understand verification, first consider a variant called Schnorr identification.

In this, instead of (c, s), the value (U, s) (a group element and an integer) is sent.

The verifier computes c = Hash(U || M) and accepts if gs = U / Yc.

This works because LHS = gs = g(r - cx) = gr / (gx)c = RHS.

Schnorr Signature Verification#

Given the signature (c, s), we perform the "reverse" of the identification in some sense.

Recall that the verifier of the identification scheme computes c from U using Hash and then verifies some condition.

The verifier of the signature scheme instead computes U from c using the condition and then verifies Hash.

In other words, the verifier first computes U = gs Yc and accepts if c = Hash(U || M).

Verification in ErgoScript#

We use the following setup in our example:

  1. The public key Y is provided as a GroupElement in R4.
  2. The message M is provided as a Coll[Byte] in R5.
  3. The value c of the signature is provided as a Coll[Byte] (for convenience) in context variable 0.
  4. The value s of the signature is provided as a BigInt in context variable 1.
  5. The hash function is Sha256.

Which looks like this in ErgoScript

{
  // Checking Schnorr signature in a script
  val g: GroupElement = groupGenerator

  // Public key for a signature
  val Y = SELF.R4[GroupElement].get

  // Message to sign
  val M = SELF.R5[Coll[Byte]].get

  // c of signature in (c, s)
  val cBytes = getVar[Coll[Byte]](0).get
  val c = byteArrayToBigInt(cBytes)

  // s of signature in (c, s)
  val s = getVar[BigInt](1).get

  val U = g.exp(s).multiply(Y.exp(c)).getEncoded // as a byte array

  sigmaProp(cBytes == sha256(U ++ M))
}

The complete process of signature generation off-chain and verification on-chain is explained in this test.