2024-02-01
· 2 min read
Product Manager
- The proposal is to advance stellar-core by adding a host function to verify the secp256r1 signature, which is the most common elliptic curve used outside of the blockchain space. It is useful in connecting off-chain authentication interfaces with on-chain functionality.
- Note that the proposal is not for a new signer type but a host function.
- Leigh investigated adding support for the WebAuthN use case, by allowing a custom account / smart contract to sign soroban auth entries using a secp256r1-signed payload.
- secp256r1 is supported by phones, passkeys, and enables an app to replace passwords. This is a massive benefit to user-facing applications like wallets.
- Pros and cons of the interface: blockchains generally implement the recovery interface over the verification interface but verification is easier for developers as it reduces burden on the client and the network.
- The WebAuthN use case requires encoding and decoding of base64 payloads and decoding JSON blobs, which is not currently supported in Soroban.
- While there are hacky ways of accomplishing the latter, it’s not a great developer experience and final implementation is susceptible to breakages on updates.
- It is also costly to bundle decoding with verification in guest.
- Soroban has always led with a batteries included mindset. Keeping in line with that approach, it makes sense to further investigate and determine whether a host function makes sense for these as well.
- Leigh’s implementation may require further evaluation of the crates used for ecdsa and p256.
- Brief discussion around proposed process for adding of a host function by a non-core dev.