A PoC combining insights derived from L4 / Counterfactual, Perun, Machinomy, Lightning Network, Eth, Raiden, and Spankchain research. This system abstracts the state channel by allowing two participants to agree about final state in the channel. As long as both parties can come to consensus on this top level state, then many iterations of more complex logic may be played out that ultimately settles to this state. Only in cases that parties can't agree to the outcome of a state transition must they deploy the logic to settle the top state.
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The generalized state channel is an idea first presented by L4. It represents a layer 2 blockchain scaling solution with other systems such as truebit and plasma. These solutions attempt to take as much computation off-chain as possible and resrict the computation of transactions to off-chain signature schemes.
The contract responsible for opening and closing channels. It holds bonded ether/tokens/state and executes the closing and intermidiate executions of state decided in final states of closed sub-channels as interpreted by the Meta-channel or off-chain client.
Contracts that extend the general state multisig and are able to decode the general state portion of the msig state and execute any logic that may need to be executed. ie sending balances of closed sub-channels on-chain yet still keeping the channel open or updating the battle arena global stats of the results of fighting kittehs.
The registry solves the inability to link contracts before they are deployed. It provides a deterministic address needed to counterfactually instatiate contracts. If the address of a compiled contract could be known before hand, those addresses could be placed directly into state agreements and used in other counterfactually instantiated contracts directly.
The (MC) is a counterfactually instatiated manager contract that is able to decode and track state on other counterfactually instatiated contracts.
An interpreter that is counterfactually instantiated and attached to the MC in state agreements in the form of a root hash. Sub-channels take on the form of traditional payment and state channels.
These are the contracts that hold the logic responsible for assembling state bytes into meaningful representations. i.e. constructing the balances in a payment channel or determining the winner of a game. They are counterfactually instantiated and provide judgement on valid state transitions.
This PoC is comprised of one on-chain special multisig contract and a system of counterfactually instantiated interepreter contracts that may never be deployed on-chain as long as the channel participants can agree on state transitions. Multiple state channels/games may be played on the same channel bond. Closing the channel will only require reconstructing some final agreed upon state on the bond and not the intermediary final states of any other game that was not challenged and closed without consensus. This is like nesting many channels into one bonded channel.
The registry contract builds a reference for agreed upon interpreter bytecode that may be deployed when necessary. Before opening a channel on the multisig contract, both parties must compile the bytecode of the meta-channel interpreter and sign a state containing a message that both parties agree to use this set of rules in case of settlement. The meta-channel has logic to handle multiple sub-channels attached to its state in the form of storing a root hash and merkle proofs of state inclusion. When a new channel is to be loaded off-chain, the balances are correctly updated in the state transition to seed the new channel and both parties sign this transition.
To open a channel the client must assemble the initial state (more specs on state to come) with the participants they plan to interact with. They sign this state and pass it to the openChannel() function. To join the channel, the participants in the initial state must sign the state and provide this signature to the joinChannel() function in the manager. Once both parties in the state have joined the channel it is flagged open and any settlements or closing may begin.
Closing a channel may happen in two ways, fast with consensus or slow with byzantine faults with a settlement period. To fast close, the state must be signed with an initial sentinel value in its sequence of bytes that represents the participants will to close to the channel. If all parties have signed a state transition with this flag then the state may be acted upon immediately by the manager and interpreter contract to settle any balances, wagers, or state outcome. If this flag is not present and the participants can't agree on the final state, the settlement game starts and accepts the highest sequence signed state. This logic holds true for the SPC and any attached sub-channels. Only the meta-channel and the sub-channel in question need to be deployed to the main chain in the event of dispute in any given sub-channel.
| Field | Description | Size |
|---|---|---|
| isClose | close chan sentinel | 1 bit |
| sequence | incremented nonce of channel | 32 bytes |
| ... |
TODO: Continue defining better state representations and optimize.
The off-chain state that these interpreters decode is currently comprised of 32 bytes chunks of hex encoded data to match the evm register. This can and should be optimized.
Meta State
[
32 isClose - Cooperative close flag
64 sequence
96 address A
128 address B
160 Meta-channel CTF Address
192 Sub-channel State Root Hash
193+ General State - Extensions must be able to handle these formats
Eth Balance
[
balanceA
balanceB
]
ERC20 Token Balances
[
balanceA
balanceB
tokenAddress
]
ERC721 Objects
[
TokenIDA
TokenIDB
tokenAddress
]
CKBA Kitty Fighter Stats
[
wagerType
wagerBalanceA
wagerBalanceB
tokenIDA
tokenIDB
tokenAddress
kittyStatsA
kittyStatsB
]
...
]Sub-channel State
[
32 isClose - Cooperative close flag
64 sequence
96 address A
128 address B
129+ General State
]The bond manager currently exposes the following to clients for opening, joining, and closing channels.
It takes two contructor arguments:
- bytes32 Counterfactual SPC address
- address Registry AddressbondManager.openChannel(bond, settlementPeriod, interpreter, initialState, signature, {from: participantAddress, value: bond})
Called by the initiator of a channel.
Parameters:
Example
bondManager.joinChannel(signature, {from: participantAddress, value: bond})
Called by parties in the initial state to join the channel
Parameters:
signature inputs
bondManager.closeChannel(state, signatures[])
quick close called by anyone with state that has a flag to close and all participant signatures
Parameters:
interpreter.startSettleState(channelIndex, state, signatures)
called by anyone with valid signatures on state that does not have close flag
Parameters:
interpreter.challengeSettleState(channelID, state, signatures)
called by anyone within the settlement period that has a higher sequence numbered state signed by all parties
Parameters:
interpreter.closeWithTimeout(channelID)
called by anyone after the settlement period has ended
Parameters:
All interpreter contracts must implement the following interface. Interpreters are predefined contracts that return boolean results that the channel manager needs to open, settle, and close. TODO create a guideline on how developers may structure custom interpreter contracts for their applications that will work with the channel manager.
function isClose(bytes _data) public returns (bool);
function isSequenceHigher(bytes _data1, bytes _data2) public returns (bool);
function isAddressInState(address _queryAddress) public returns (bool);
function hasAllSigs(address[] recoveredAddresses) public returns (bool);
function quickClose(bytes _data) public returns (bool);
TODO