bitgesell-merkle-lib

A performance conscious library for merkle root and tree calculations for Bitgesell Blockchain Network.

Disclaimer

This implementation is vulnerable to a forgery attack as a second pre-image attack, see these[1][2] crypto.stackexchange questions for an explanation. To avoid this vulnerability, you should pre-hash your leaves using a different hash function than the function provided such that H(x) != H'(x).

Additionally, this implementation is vulnerable to a forgery attack for an unbalanced merkle tree, wherein, in an unbalanced merkle tree, the last leaf node can be duplicated to create an artificial balanced tree, resulting in the same root hash. To avoid this vulnerability [in this implementation], do not accept unbalanced merkle trees in your application.

Usage

Preamble

const crypto = require('crypto')

function sha256 (data) {
  return crypto.createHash('sha256').update(data).digest()
}

const data = [
  'cafebeef',
  'ffffffff',
  'aaaaaaaa',
  'bbbbbbbb',
  'cccccccc'
].map(x => new Buffer(x, 'hex'))

// ... now, the examples

Tree

const { merkleTree } = require('bitgesell-merkle-lib')
const tree = merkleTree(data, sha256)

console.log(tree.map(x => x.toString('hex')))
// => [
//  'cafebeef',
//  'ffffffff',
//  'aaaaaaaa',
//  'bbbbbbbb',
//  'cccccccc',
//  'bda5c39dec343da54ce91c57bf8e796c2ca16a1bd8cae6a2cefbdd16efc32578',
//  '8b722baf6775a313f1032ba9984c0dce32ff3c40d7a67b5df8de4dbaa43a3db0',
//  '3d2f424783df5853c8d7121b1371650c04241f318e1b0cd46bedbc805b9164c3',
//  'bb232963fd0efdeacb0fd76e26cf69055fa5facc19a5f5c2f2f27a6925d1db2f',
//  '2256e70bea2c591190a0d4d6c1415acd7458fae84d8d85cdc68b851da27777d4',
//  'c2692b0e127b3b774a92f6e1d8ff8c3a5ea9eef9a1d389fe294f0a7a2fec9be1'
//]

Root only (equivalent to tree[tree.length - 1])

const { 
  fastRoot, 
  verify
} = require('bitgesell-merkle-lib')

const root = fastRoot(data, sha256)

console.log(root.toString('hex'))
// => 'c2692b0e127b3b774a92f6e1d8ff8c3a5ea9eef9a1d389fe294f0a7a2fec9be1'

Proof (with verify)

const {merkleProof} = require('bitgesell-merkle-lib')
const proof = merkleProof(tree, data[0])

if (proof === null) {
  console.error('No proof exists!')
}

console.log(proof.map(x => x && x.toString('hex')))
// => [
//   'cafebeef',
//   'ffffffff',
//   null,
//   '8b722baf6775a313f1032ba9984c0dce32ff3c40d7a67b5df8de4dbaa43a3db0',
//   null,
//   '2256e70bea2c591190a0d4d6c1415acd7458fae84d8d85cdc68b851da27777d4',
//   'c2692b0e127b3b774a92f6e1d8ff8c3a5ea9eef9a1d389fe294f0a7a2fec9be1'
// ]

console.log(verify(proof, sha256))
// => true

API

For an indepth documentation refer to docs also see usage for practical usage.

Tests

To run tests,

npm install
npm run unit

Credits

Thanks to Meni Rosenfield on bitcointalk for the math.