P2WPKH Transactions

Sending to a P2WPKH Output

Sending a transaction to a Pay-to-Witness-Public-Key-Hash (P2WPKH) destination requires the construction of the following output script:

Transaction Element	Script
Output Script	zero [20-byte hash160(public key)]

We can construct such a P2WPKH output script by populating an operation vector with the relevant operations shown above.

// P2WPKH output script.

// 0 [20-byte hash160(public key)]
operation::list p2wpkh_operations;
p2wpkh_operations.push_back(operation(opcode::push_size_0));
p2wpkh_operations.push_back(
    operation(to_chunk(bitcoin_short_hash(pubkey_witness_aware))));

// Build P2WPKH output.
std::string btc_amount = "0.995";
uint64_t output_amount;
decode_base10(output_amount, btc_amount, btc_decimal_places);
output p2wpkh_output(output_amount, p2wpkh_operations);

If the spending of the previous transaction output(s) do not require the construction of witnesses, the rest of the transaction is built and signed according to the documentation sections building transactions and sighash.

You can find the complete P2WPKH example script here.

Spending a P2WPKH output

Spending a P2WPKH output requires constructing the transaction according to the following scheme.

Transaction Element	Script
Output Script	According to destination address
Input Script	"empty"
Script Code	DUP HASH160 [20-byte hash160(Public Key)] EQUALVERIFY CHECKSIG
Witness	[Signature] [Public Key]

The construction of the input in Libbitcoin initially follows the regular steps of populating input objects with the previous transaction elements.

//Omitted: Construction of output according to destination address

// P2WPKH input.
// Previous transaction hash.
std::string prev_tx =
    "26c9768cdbb00332ff1052f27e71eb7e82b578bf02fb6d7eecfd0b43412e9d10";
hash_digest prev_tx_hash;
decode_hash(prev_tx_hash,prev_tx);
// Previous UXTO index.
uint32_t index = 0;
output_point uxto_to_spend(prev_tx_hash, index);
// Build input0 object.
input p2wpkh_input;
p2wpkh_input.set_previous_output(uxto_to_spend);
p2wpkh_input.set_sequence(max_input_sequence);

// Build Transaction.
transaction tx;
tx.set_version(1u);
tx.inputs().push_back(p2wpkh_input);
tx.outputs().push_back(p2wpkh_output);

Signing a transaction with a P2WPKH input

BIP143 describes a witness-specific sighash generation algorithm for signatures evaluated by CHECKSIG, CHECKSIGVERIFY, CHECKMULTISIG, CHECKMULTISIGVERIFY.

In particular, a script code and the previous input amount are required for the signature algorithm. The script code for spending a P2WPKH is simply a pay-to-public-key-hash script of the destination address.

// Create signature for witness.

// Script code.
script p2wpkh_script_code = script::to_pay_key_hash_pattern(
    bitcoin_short_hash(pubkey_witness_aware));

// Previous input amount.
uint8_t input_index(0u);
std::string prev_btc_amount = "0.995";
uint64_t prev_amount;
decode_base10(prev_amount, prev_btc_amount, btc_decimal_places);

// Pass script_version::zero & prev input amount
endorsement sig_1;
script::create_endorsement(sig_1, my_secret_witness_aware, p2wpkh_script_code,
    tx, input_index, sighash_algorithm::all, script_version::zero,
    prev_amount);

The script::create_endorsement method will generate a sighash according to the witness program version parameter. For inputs requiring a witness of the current version, this argument will be set to version zero in order for the witness-specific sighash algorithm to be applied.

P2WPKH Witness

Once the signature object is created, the witness object of the transaction can be constructed:

// Create witness.
// 02 [signature] [publicKey]
data_stack witness_stack;
witness_stack.push_back(sig_1);
witness_stack.push_back(to_chunk(pubkey_witness_aware));
witness p2wpkh_witness(witness_stack);
tx.inputs()[0].set_witness(p2wpkh_witness);

Note that the witness class is constructed from a data stack, which in turn is an alias for the standard vector class storing data chunk elements. The witness object produces a serialised format which prepends a single-byte length prefix to each data chunk in its stack.

The serialised encoding of the witness may appear similar to Bitcoin scripts, but it differs in that it only consists of serialised data pushes with the aforementioned length prefixes.

This can be observed in the serialised witness from our example:

// Number of following witness elements for first input.
02
// Length of 71-byte endorsement.
47
// Endorsement( DER signature + sighash marker ).
304402202f7cac3494e521018ae0be4ca18517639ef7c00658d42a9f938b2b344c8454e2022039a54218832fad5d14b331329d9042c51ee6be287e95e49ee5b96fda1f5ce13f01
// Length of 33-byte public key.
21
// Even public key.
026ccfb8061f235cc110697c0bfb3afb99d82c886672f6b9b5393b25a434c0cbf3

Serialised P2WPKH Transaction

Finally, we can express our P2WPKH spending transaction in the following serialised form:

// Serialize Transaction.
std::cout << encode_base16(tx.to_data(true,true)) << std::endl;

01000000000101109d2e41430bfdec7e6dfb02bf78b5827eeb717ef25210ff3203b0db8c76c9260000000000ffffffff01a032eb0500000000160014bbef244bcad13cffb68b5cef3017c742367555220247304402202f7cac3494e521018ae0be4ca18517639ef7c00658d42a9f938b2b344c8454e2022039a54218832fad5d14b331329d9042c51ee6be287e95e49ee5b96fda1f5ce13f0121026ccfb8061f235cc110697c0bfb3afb99d82c886672f6b9b5393b25a434c0cbf300000000

Parsing the serialised form with BX gives us an overview of our constructed P2WPKH transaction.

BX tx-decode -f json 01000000000101109d2e41430bfdec7e6dfb02bf78b5827eeb717ef25210ff3203b0db8c76c9260000000000ffffffff01a032eb0500000000160014bbef244bcad13cffb68b5cef3017c742367555220247304402202f7cac3494e521018ae0be4ca18517639ef7c00658d42a9f938b2b344c8454e2022039a54218832fad5d14b331329d9042c51ee6be287e95e49ee5b96fda1f5ce13f0121026ccfb8061f235cc110697c0bfb3afb99d82c886672f6b9b5393b25a434c0cbf300000000

{
    "transaction": {
        "hash": "568c2b0c82bad3c7056ba7837f00a75178024dc3fafb61e442e4ee18bb31a5c2",
        "inputs": [
            {
                "previous_output": {
                    "hash": "26c9768cdbb00332ff1052f27e71eb7e82b578bf02fb6d7eecfd0b43412e9d10",
                    "index": "0"
                },
                "script": "",
                "sequence": "4294967295",
                "witness": "[304402202f7cac3494e521018ae0be4ca18517639ef7c00658d42a9f938b2b344c8454e2022039a54218832fad5d14b331329d9042c51ee6be287e95e49ee5b96fda1f5ce13f01] [026ccfb8061f235cc110697c0bfb3afb99d82c886672f6b9b5393b25a434c0cbf3]"
            }
        ],
        "lock_time": "0",
        "outputs": [
            {
                "script": "zero [bbef244bcad13cffb68b5cef3017c74236755522]",
                "value": "99300000"
            }
        ],
        "version": "1"
    }
}

You can find the complete P2WPKH transaction script here.