BIP 348: CHECKSIGFROMSTACK

In plain English: Adds an instruction letting Bitcoin scripts verify a signature over any piece of data, not just over the spending transaction itself. That opens the door to things like delegating spending rights, using signed messages from outside parties (oracles), and building more efficient second-layer protocols.

Status: Draft
Type: Specification
Layer: Consensus (soft fork)
Authors: Brandon Black, Jeremy Rubin
Assigned: 2024-11-26
Last changed: 2025-10-08
Topics: Consensus
Source: bip-0348.md on GitHub · Markdown

Abstract

This BIP describes a new opcode for the purpose of checking cryptographic signatures in bitcoin scripts against data from the stack.

Summary

When verifying taproot script spends having leaf version 0xc0 (as defined in BIP 342), we propose OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK to replace OP_SUCCESS204 (0xcc).

OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK has semantics similar to OP_CHECKSIG, as specified below. Briefly, it pops 3 elements from the stack: a 32-byte public key, a message, and a signature. If the signature is valid for that public key and message, 1 is pushed to the stack. If the signature is the empty vector, 0 is pushed to the stack, and otherwise script execution fails.

Only 32-byte keys are constrained. Similar to BIP 342 unknown key types, for other key lengths no signature verification is performed and it is considered successful.

Specification

If fewer than 3 elements are on the stack, the script MUST fail and terminate immediately.
The public key (top element), message (second to top element), and signature (third from top element) are read from the stack.
The top three elements are popped from the stack.
If the public key size is zero, the script MUST fail and terminate immediately.
If the public key size is 32 bytes, it is considered to be a public key as described in BIP 340:
- If the signature is not the empty vector, the signature is validated against the public key and message according to BIP 340. Validation failure in this case immediately terminates script execution with failure.
If the public key size is not zero and not 32 bytes; the public key is of an unknown public key type. Signature verification for unknown public key types succeeds as if signature verification for a known public key type had succeeded.
If the script did not fail and terminate before this step, regardless of the public key type:
- If the signature is the empty vector: An empty vector is pushed onto the stack, and execution continues with the next opcode.
- If the signature is not the empty vector:
  - The opcode is counted towards the sigops budget as described in BIP 342.
  - A 1-byte value 0x01 is pushed onto the stack.

Design Considerations

Message hashing: BIP 340 is compatible with any size of message and does not require it to be a securely hashed input, so the message is not hashed prior to BIP 340 verification.
Lack of verify semantics: Adding a single opcode for this purpose keeps the implementation and design simple. An earlier draft had a verify variant as a NOP upgrade, and if this functionality is later brought to legacy scripts, that would be a good time to add a verify variant.
Add/multisig: No concession is made to OP_CHECKMULTISIG or OP_CHECKSIGADD semantics with OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK. In Tapscript, add semantics can be implemented with 1 additional vByte per key (OP_TOALTSTACK OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK OP_FROMALTSTACK OP_ADD).
Splitting R/S on the stack: Implementing split/separate signatures is left as an exercise for other bitcoin upgrades, such as BIP 347 (OP_CAT).
APO-style (BIP 118) Taproot internal key: Rather than introducing an additional key type in this change, we suggest implementing OP_INTERNALKEY (BIP 349) or separately introducing that key type for all Tapscript signature checking operations in a separate change.

Resource Limits

These opcodes are treated identically to other signature checking opcodes and count against the sigops and budget.

Motivation

LN Symmetry

When combined with BIP 119 (OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY/CTV), OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK (CSFS) can be used to implement Lightning Symmetry channels. The construction OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY <pubkey> OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK with a spend stack containing the CTV hash and a signature for it is logically equivalent to <bip118_pubkey> OP_CHECKSIG and a signature over SIGHASH_ALL|SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUTANYSCRIPT. The OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK construction is 8 vBytes larger.

Summary of alternatives:

CTV+CSFS is the minimal functionality needed for Lightning Symmetry but requires the use of an OP_RETURN for data availability
APO is the original design for Lightning Symmetry and uses the taproot annex for data availability.
LNHANCE (CTV+CSFS+IKEY+PC) is the most efficient and direct way currently designed to implement Lightning Symmetry.

Delegation

Using a script like: <pubkey> SWAP IF 2 PICK SWAP CSFS VERIFY ENDIF CHECKSIG either direct verification or delegation can be achieved by the following unlock stacks: <sig> 0 or <dsig> <dpubkey> <sig> 1

Advanced delegation when combined with OP_PAIRCOMMIT or OP_CAT

Using a script like: CLTV OVER PAIRCOMMIT TOALT CHECKSIGVERIFY FROMALT <pubkey> CSFS or: CLTV SHA256 OVER CAT TOALT CHECKSIGVERIFY FROMALT <pubkey> CSFS with the unlock stack: <sig> <delegate_sig> <delegate_pubkey> <locktime>

Delegates to a public key after a lock time, enabling delegation to various keys after various associated times.

Reference Implementation

A reference implementation is provided here:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/29270

Backward Compatibility

By constraining the behavior of an OP_SUCCESS opcode, deployment of the BIP can be done in a backwards compatible, soft-fork manner. If anyone were to rely on the OP_SUCCESS behavior of OP_SUCCESS204, OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK would invalidate their spend.

Deployment

TBD

Credits

Reference implementation was made with reference to the implementation in Elements and started by moonsettler.

Copyright

This document is licensed under the 3-clause BSD license.