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Threshold Schnorr

Advanced
Concept

Overview​

Schnorr signatures are a type of digital signature scheme popularly used amongst blockchain networks because they are efficient, simple, and allow for multi-signatures, threshold signatures, and aggregated signatures to be used on the network. On ICP, threshold Schnorr signatures enable canisters to hold a wider range of digital assets and allow for direct integrations with other chains like Solana.

Specifically, threshold Schnorr signatures on ICP provide:

  • Support for BIP-340, which is Bitcoin's variant of Schnorr used in Ordinals, Runes, and BRC-20.

  • Support for Ed25519 signatures, which are used by chains such as Solana, Cardano, Polkadot, and Ripple. Ed25519 is also a popular signature scheme outside of blockchains for Web2 functions such as signing X.509 certificates.

  • Provide higher signature throughput than threshold ECDSA signatures.

  • Allow canisters to obtain their own Schnorr public key and address, unlocking the ability for them to derive addresses on other chains, then authorize and submit transactions on those chains.

  • Enable Schnorr signatures to be computed on arbitrary messages.

Signing messages and transactions​

Threshold Schnorr can be used by making calls to the threshold Schnorr API methods.

Learn how to sign messages and transactions with threshold Schnorr.

Resources​