[bitcoin-dev] Ivy: a higher-level language targeting Bitcoin Script

[Daniel Robinson via bitcoin-dev]

Today, we’re releasing Ivy, a prototype higher-level language and
development environment for creating custom Bitcoin Script programs. You
can see the full announcement here
<https://blog.chain.com/ivy-for-bitcoin-a-smart-contract-language-that-compiles-to-bitcoin-script-bec06377141a>,
or check out the docs <https://docs.ivy-lang.org/bitcoin/> and source code
<https://github.com/ivy-lang/ivy-bitcoin>.

Ivy is a simple smart contract language that can compile to Bitcoin Script.
It aims to improve on the useability of Bitcoin Script by adding
affordances like named variables and clauses, static (and domain-specific)
types, and familiar syntax for function calls.

To try out Ivy, you can use the Ivy Playground for Bitcoin
<https://ivy-lang.org/bitcoin/>, which allows you to create and test
simulated contracts in a sandboxed environment.

This is prototype software intended for educational and research purposes
only. Please don't try to use Ivy to control real or testnet Bitcoins.

[Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev]

I'm curious if you've considered adding some form of compiler-time enforcement to prevent witness malleability? With that, Ivy could help to resolve for it's users one of the things that can make Bitcoin scripts more complicated to write, instead of simply type-checking and providing a high-level language mapped 1-to-1 with Bitcoin script.

Post by Daniel Robinson via bitcoin-dev
Today, we’re releasing Ivy, a prototype higher-level language and
development environment for creating custom Bitcoin Script programs. You
can see the full announcement here
<https://blog.chain.com/ivy-for-bitcoin-a-smart-contract-language-that-compiles-to-bitcoin-script-bec06377141a>,
or check out the docs <https://docs.ivy-lang.org/bitcoin/> and source code
<https://github.com/ivy-lang/ivy-bitcoin>.
Ivy is a simple smart contract language that can compile to Bitcoin Script.
It aims to improve on the useability of Bitcoin Script by adding
affordances like named variables and clauses, static (and
domain-specific)
types, and familiar syntax for function calls.
To try out Ivy, you can use the Ivy Playground for Bitcoin
<https://ivy-lang.org/bitcoin/>, which allows you to create and test
simulated contracts in a sandboxed environment.
This is prototype software intended for educational and research purposes
only. Please don't try to use Ivy to control real or testnet Bitcoins.

[Daniel Robinson via bitcoin-dev]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for raising this. Since the compiler only produces SegWit addresses,
I hadn't worried at all about malleability, but as you pointed out
out-of-band, malleability in the length of an argument can allow an
attacker to deflate the feerate of a transaction.

There was in fact a minor witness malleability problem with how the
compiler was handling clause selection. It's now been fixed in version
0.0.7 of the compiler.

As far as I can tell (and I haven't looked all that carefully), any
sensible Ivy contract won't have any witness malleability problem. (A funny
exception is the RevealCollision contract, since you can length-extend the
arguments to get another collision. But without a signature check, that one
has a more serious transaction malleability problem anyway.) But the
compiler currently doesn't prevent you from doing dumb unconstrained stuff
like:

```
clause spend(a: Bytes, b: Bytes, sig: Signature) {
verify a == b
verify checkSig(publicKey, sig)
unlock val
}
```

Maybe it should, particularly since there's no reason to include a trivial
condition like that anyway. But I think it would probably be about as easy
(and more generally useful) to build a static analyzer that solved this
problem for low-level Bitcoin Script.

Post by Matt Corallo via bitcoin-dev
I'm curious if you've considered adding some form of compiler-time
enforcement to prevent witness malleability? With that, Ivy could help to
resolve for it's users one of the things that can make Bitcoin scripts more
complicated to write, instead of simply type-checking and providing a
high-level language mapped 1-to-1 with Bitcoin script.
On December 18, 2017 8:32:17 PM UTC, Daniel Robinson via bitcoin-dev <

Post by Daniel Robinson via bitcoin-dev
Today, we’re releasing Ivy, a prototype higher-level language and
development environment for creating custom Bitcoin Script programs. You
can see the full announcement here
<https://blog.chain.com/ivy-for-bitcoin-a-smart-contract-language-that-compiles-to-bitcoin-script-bec06377141a>,
or check out the docs <https://docs.ivy-lang.org/bitcoin/> and source
code <https://github.com/ivy-lang/ivy-bitcoin>.
Ivy is a simple smart contract language that can compile to Bitcoin
Script. It aims to improve on the useability of Bitcoin Script by adding
affordances like named variables and clauses, static (and domain-specific)
types, and familiar syntax for function calls.
To try out Ivy, you can use the Ivy Playground for Bitcoin
<https://ivy-lang.org/bitcoin/>, which allows you to create and test
simulated contracts in a sandboxed environment.
This is prototype software intended for educational and research purposes
only. Please don't try to use Ivy to control real or testnet Bitcoins.