Update Protocol

.. mermaid:: diagrams/setstate-protocol-state.mmd

Once an application has been installed into the state channel, the multisignature wallet has transferred control over the installed amount from the free balance to the application's resolve function, a mapping from application state to funds distribution. For example, in the case of Tic-Tac-Toe, a possible payout function is: if X wins, Alice gets 2 ETH, else if O wins Bob gets 2 ETH, else send 1 ETH to Alice and Bob.

As the underlying state of the application changes, the result of the payout function changes. It is the job of the Update Protocol to mutate this state, independently of the rest of the counterfactual structure.

Using our Tic-Tac-Toe example, if Alice decides to place an X on the board, Alice would run the Update Protocol, transitioning our state to what is represented by the figure above. Notice how both the board changes and the local nonce for the app is bumped from 0 to 1. To play out the game, we can continuously run the update protocol, making one move at a time.

Messages

.. mermaid:: diagrams/setstate-protocol-exchange.mmd

For the below messages, the digest that is signed is represented as the following:

keccak256(
  ["bytes1", "bytes32", "bytes32", "uint256",
  [
    0x19,
    keccak256(encode(
      [address, address[], address, bytes32, uint256 ],
      [owner, signingKeys, appDefinitionAddress, termsHash, defaultTimeout]
    )),
    0,
    TIMEOUT
  ]
);

Type: UpdateParams

Field

Type

Description

appInstanceId

bytes32

Hashed App Identity

newState

AppState / JSON-like

New state to set to

The SetState Message

Field

Description

protocol

"update"

params

An UpdateParams object

fromAddress

The address of Alice

toAddress

The address of Bob

seq

1

signature

Alice's signed commitment digest

TODO: Add a field for the encoded action

The SetStateAck Message

Field

Description

protocol

"update"

fromAddress

The address of Alice

toAddress

The address of Bob

seq

2

signature

Bob's signed commitment digest

Commitments

Commitment for SetState and SetStateAck:

The commitment can be visually represented like:

.. mermaid:: diagrams/setstate-protocol-commitment.mmd

This transaction invoke the setState function with the signatures exchanged during the protocol.

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