BIP: 158
Layer: Peer Services
Title: Compact Block Filters for Light Clients
Author: Olaoluwa Osuntokun
Alex Akselrod
Comments-Summary: None yet
Comments-URI: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/wiki/Comments:BIP-0158
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
Created: 2017-05-24
License: CC0-1.0
== Abstract ==
This BIP describes a structure for compact filters on block data, for use in the
BIP 157 light client protocol[bip-0157.mediawiki]. The filter
construction proposed is an alternative to Bloom filters, as used in BIP 37,
that minimizes filter size by using Golomb-Rice coding for compression. This
document specifies two initial types of filters based on this construction that
enables basic wallets and applications with more advanced smart contracts.
== Motivation ==
[[bip-0157.mediawiki|BIP 157]] defines a light client protocol based on
deterministic filters of block content. The filters are designed to
minimize the expected bandwidth consumed by light clients, downloading filters
and full blocks. This document defines two initial filter types, ''basic'' and
''extended'', to provide support for advanced applications while reducing the
filter size for regular wallets.
== Definitions ==
[]byte represents a vector of bytes.
[N]byte represents a fixed-size byte array with length N.
''CompactSize'' is a compact encoding of unsigned integers used in the Bitcoin
P2P protocol.
''Data pushes'' are byte vectors pushed to the stack according to the rules of
Bitcoin script.
''Bit streams'' are readable and writable streams of individual bits. The
following functions are used in the pseudocode in this document:
* new_bit_stream instantiates a new writable bit stream
* new_bit_stream(vector) instantiates a new bit stream reading data from vector
* write_bit(stream, b) appends the bit b to the end of the stream
* read_bit(stream) reads the next available bit from the stream
* write_bits_big_endian(stream, n, k) appends the k least significant bits of integer n to the end of the stream in big-endian bit order
* read_bits_big_endian(stream, k) reads the next available
* k bits from the stream and interprets them as the least significant bits of a big-endian integer
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD",
"SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be
interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
== Specification ==
=== Golomb-Coded Sets ===
For each block, compact filters are derived containing sets of items associated
with the block (eg. addresses sent to, outpoints spent, etc.). A set of such
data objects is compressed into a probabilistic structure called a
''Golomb-coded set'' (GCS), which matches all items in the set with probability
1, and matches other items with probability 2^(-P) for some integer
parameter P.
At a high level, a GCS is constructed from a set of N items by:
# hashing all items to 64-bit integers in the range [0, N * 2^P)
# sorting the hashed values in ascending order
# computing the differences between each value and the previous one
# writing the differences sequentially, compressed with Golomb-Rice coding
The following sections describe each step in greater detail.
==== Hashing Data Objects ====
The first step in the filter construction is hashing the variable-sized raw
items in the set to the range [0, F), where F = N *
2^P. Set membership queries against the hash outputs will have a false
positive rate of 2^(-P). To avoid integer overflow, the number of
items N MUST be <2^32 and P MUST be <=32.
The items are first passed through the pseudorandom function ''SipHash'', which
takes a 128-bit key k and a variable-sized byte vector and produces
a uniformly random 64-bit output. Implementations of this BIP MUST use the
SipHash parameters c = 2 and d = 4.
The 64-bit SipHash outputs are then mapped uniformly over the desired range by
multiplying with F and taking the top 64 bits of the 128-bit result. This
algorithm is a faster alternative to modulo reduction, as it avoids the
expensive division
operation[https://lemire.me/blog/2016/06/27/a-fast-alternative-to-the-modulo-reduction/].
Note that care must be taken when implementing this reduction to ensure the
upper 64 bits of the integer multiplication are not truncated; certain
architectures and high level languages may require code that decomposes the
64-bit multiplication into four 32-bit multiplications and recombines into the
result.
hash_to_range(item: []byte, F: uint64, k: [16]byte) -> uint64:
return (siphash(k, item) * F) >> 64
hashed_set_construct(raw_items: [][]byte, P: uint, k: [16]byte) -> []uint64:
let N = len(raw_items)
let F = N << P
let set_items = []
for item in raw_items:
let set_value = hash_to_range(item, F, k)
set_items.append(set_value)
return set_items
==== Golomb-Rice Coding ====
Instead of writing the items in the hashed set directly to the filter, greater
compression is achieved by only writing the differences between successive
items in sorted order. Since the items are distributed uniformly, it can be
shown that the differences resemble a geometric
distribution[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_distribution].
''Golomb-Rice''
''coding''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golomb_coding#Rice_coding]
is a technique that optimally compresses geometrically distributed values.
With Golomb-Rice, a value is split into a quotient and remainder modulo
2^P, which are encoded separately. The quotient q is
encoded as ''unary'', with a string of q 1's followed by one 0. The
remainder r is represented in big-endian by P bits. For example,
this is a table of Golomb-Rice coded values using P=2:
{| class="wikitable"
! n !! (q, r) !! c
|-
| 0 || (0, 0) || 0 00
|-
| 1 || (0, 1) || 0 01
|-
| 2 || (0, 2) || 0 10
|-
| 3 || (0, 3) || 0 11
|-
| 4 || (1, 0) || 10 00
|-
| 5 || (1, 1) || 10 01
|-
| 6 || (1, 2) || 10 10
|-
| 7 || (1, 3) || 10 11
|-
| 8 || (2, 0) || 110 00
|-
| 9 || (2, 1) || 110 01
|}
golomb_encode(stream, x: uint64, P: uint):
let q = x >> P
while q > 0:
write_bit(stream, 1)
q--
write_bit(stream, 0)
write_bits_big_endian(stream, x, P)
golomb_decode(stream, P: uint) -> uint64:
let q = 0
while read_bit(stream) == 1:
q++
let r = read_bits_big_endian(stream, P)
let x = (q << P) + r
return x
==== Set Construction ====
A GCS is constructed from three parameters:
* L, a vector of N raw items
* P, which determines the false positive rate
* k, the 128-bit key used to randomize the SipHash outputs
The result is a byte vector with a minimum size of N * (P + 1)
bits.
The raw items in L are first hashed to 64-bit unsigned integers as
specified above and sorted. The differences between consecutive values,
hereafter referred to as ''deltas'', are encoded sequentially to a bit stream
with Golomb-Rice coding. Finally, the bit stream is padded with 0's to the
nearest byte boundary and serialized to the output byte vector.
construct_gcs(L: [][]byte, P: uint, k: [16]byte) -> []byte:
let set_items = hashed_set_construct(L, P, k)
set_items.sort()
let output_stream = new_bit_stream()
let last_value = 0
for item in set_items:
let delta = item - last_value
golomb_encode(output_stream, delta, P)
last_value = item
return output_stream.bytes()
==== Set Querying/Decompression ====
To check membership of an item in a compressed GCS, one must reconstruct the
hashed set members from the encoded deltas. The procedure to do so is the
reverse of the compression: deltas are decoded one by one and added to a
cumulative sum. Each intermediate sum represents a hashed value in the original
set. The queried item is hashed in the same way as the set members and compared
against the reconstructed values. Note that querying does not require the entire
decompressed set be held in memory at once.
gcs_match(key: [16]byte, compressed_set: []byte, target: []byte, P: uint, N: uint) -> bool:
let F = N << P
let target_hash = hash_to_range(target, F, k)
stream = new_bit_stream(compressed_set)
let last_value = 0
loop N times:
let delta = golomb_decode(stream, P)
let set_item = last_value + delta
if set_item == target_hash:
return true
// Since the values in the set are sorted, terminate the search once
// the decoded value exceeds the target.
if set_item > target_hash:
break
last_value = set_item
return false
Some applications may need to check for set intersection instead of membership
of a single item. This can be performed far more efficiently than checking each
item individually by leveraging the sorted structure of the compressed GCS.
First the query elements are all hashed and sorted, then compared in order
against the decompressed GCS contents. See
[[#golomb-coded-set-multi-match|Appendix B]] for pseudocode.
=== Block Filters ===
This BIP defines two initial filter types:
* Basic (0x00)
* Extended (0x01)
==== Contents ====
The basic filter is designed to contain everything that a light client needs to
sync a regular Bitcoin wallet. A basic filter MUST contain exactly the following
items for each transaction in a block:
* The outpoint of each input, except for the coinbase transaction
* The scriptPubKey of each output
* The txid of the transaction itself
The extended filter contains extra data that is meant to enable applications
with more advanced smart contracts. An extended filter MUST contain exactly the
following items for each transaction in a block ''except the coinbase'':
* Each item within the witness stack of each input (if the input has a witness)
* Each data push in the scriptSig of each input
Note that neither filter type interprets P2SH scripts or witness scripts to
extract data pushes from them. If necessary, future filter types may be designed
to do so.
==== Construction ====
Both the basic and extended filter types are constructed as Golomb-coded sets
with the following parameters.
The parameter P MUST be set to 20. This value was
chosen as simulations show that it minimizes the bandwidth utilized, considering
both the expected number of blocks downloaded due to false positives and the
size of the filters themselves. The code along with a demo used for the
parameter tuning can be found
[https://github.com/Roasbeef/bips/blob/83b83c78e189be898573e0bfe936dd0c9b99ecb9/gcs_light_client/gentestvectors.go here].
The parameter k MUST be set to the first 16 bytes of the hash of
the block for which the filter is constructed. This ensures the key is
deterministic while still varying from block to block.
Since the value N is required to decode a GCS, a serialized GCS
includes it as a prefix, written as a CompactSize. Thus, the complete
serialization of a filter is:
* N, encoded as a CompactSize
* The bytes of the compressed filter itself
==== Signaling ====
This BIP allocates a new service bit:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
| NODE_COMPACT_FILTERS
| style="white-space: nowrap;" | 1 << 6
| If enabled, the node MUST respond to all BIP 157 messages for filter types 0x00 and 0x01
|}
== Compatibility ==
This block filter construction is not incompatible with existing software,
though it requires implementation of the new filters.
== Acknowledgments ==
We would like to thank bfd (from the bitcoin-dev mailing list) for bringing the
basis of this BIP to our attention, Greg Maxwell for pointing us in the
direction of Golomb-Rice coding and fast range optimization, and Pedro
Martelletto for writing the initial indexing code for btcd.
We would also like to thank Dave Collins, JJ Jeffrey, and Eric Lombrozo for
useful discussions.
== Reference Implementation ==
Light client: [https://github.com/lightninglabs/neutrino]
Full-node indexing: https://github.com/Roasbeef/btcd/tree/segwit-cbf
Golomb-Rice Coded sets: https://github.com/Roasbeef/btcutil/tree/gcs/gcs
== Appendix A: Alternatives ==
A number of alternative set encodings were considered before Golomb-coded
sets were settled upon. In this appendix section, we'll list a few of the
alternatives along with our rationale for not pursuing them.
==== Bloom Filters ====
Bloom Filters are perhaps the best known probabilistic data structure for
testing set membership, and were introduced into the Bitcoin protocol with BIP
37. The size of a Bloom filter is larger than the expected size of a GCS with
the same false positive rate, which is the main reason the option was rejected.
==== Cryptographic Accumulators ====
Cryptographic
accumulators[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accumulator_(cryptography)]
are a cryptographic data structures that enable (amongst other operations) a one
way membership test. One advantage of accumulators are that they are constant
size, independent of the number of elements inserted into the accumulator.
However, current constructions of cryptographic accumulators require an initial
trusted set up. Additionally, accumulators based on the Strong-RSA Assumption
require mapping set items to prime representatives in the associated group which
can be preemptively expensive.
==== Matrix Based Probabilistic Set Data Structures ====
There exist data structures based on matrix solving which are even more space
efficient compared to Bloom
filters[https://arxiv.org/pdf/0804.1845.pdf]. We instead opted for our
GCS-based filters as they have a much lower implementation complexity and are
easier to understand.
== Appendix B: Pseudocode ==
=== Golomb-Coded Set Multi-Match ===
gcs_match_any(key: [16]byte, compressed_set: []byte, targets: [][]byte, P: uint, N: uint) -> bool:
let F = N << P
// Map targets to the same range as the set hashes.
let target_hashes = []
for target in targets:
let target_hash = hash_to_range(target, F, k)
target_hashes.append(target_hash)
// Sort targets so matching can be checked in linear time.
target_hashes.sort()
stream = new_bit_stream(compressed_set)
let value = 0
let target_idx = 0
let target_val = target_hashes[target_idx]
loop N times:
let delta = golomb_decode(stream, P)
value += delta
inner loop:
if target_val == value:
return true
// Move on to the next set value.
else if target_val > value:
break inner loop
// Move on to the next target value.
else if target_val < value:
target_idx++
// If there are no targets left, then there are no matches.
if target_idx == len(targets):
break outer loop
target_val = target_hashes[target_idx]
return false
== Appendix C: Test Vectors ==
TODO: To be generated.
== References ==
== Copyright ==
This document is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal lisence.