Transactions

Transactions are the fundamental unit of execution in the Stacks blockchain. Each transaction is originated from a Stacks account, and is retained in the Stacks blockchain. This guide helps you understand Stacks transactions.

Lifecycle

Transactions go through phases before being finally confirmed and propagated on the Stacks network.

• Generate: Transactions are assembled according to the encoding specification.
• Validate and sign: Transactions are validated to confirm they are well-formed. Required signatures are filled in.
• Broadcast: Transactions are sent to a node.
• Register: A miner receives transactions, verifies, and adds them to the "mempool", a holding area for all the pending transactions.
• Process: Miners review the mempool and select transactions to be included in the next block. Depending on the transaction type, different actions can happen during this step. For example, post-conditions could be verified for a token transfer, tokens defined in a smart contract could be minted, or an attempt to call an existing smart contract method could be made.
• Confirm: Miners successfully mine blocks, with each block containing a set of transactions. The transactions inside each new block are successfully propagated to the network.

Types

Stacks supports a set of different transaction types:

A sample of each transaction type can be found in the Stacks Blockchain API response definition for transactions.

Anchor mode

Transactions can be mined either in an anchor block or in a microblock. If microblocks are selected, the transaction can be confirmed with a lower latency than the anchor block time.

The anchor mode enum has three options:

• OnChainOnly The transaction must be included in an anchored block.
• OffChainOnly: The transaction must be included in a microblock.
• Any: The leader can choose where to include the transaction.

Here is an example where the transaction must be included in a microblock:

import { AnchorMode, makeSTXTokenTransfer } from '@stacks/transactions';
import { StacksTestnet, StacksMainnet } from '@stacks/network';

const BigNum = require('bn.js');

const txOptions = {
  recipient: 'SP3FGQ8Z7JY9BWYZ5WM53E0M9NK7WHJF0691NZ159',
  amount: new BigNum(12345),
  senderKey: 'b244296d5907de9864c0b0d51f98a13c52890be0404e83f273144cd5b9960eed01',
  network: new StacksTestnet(), // for mainnet, use `StacksMainnet()`
  anchorMode: AnchorMode.OffChainOnly, // must be included in a microblock
};

const transaction = await makeSTXTokenTransfer(txOptions);

Post-conditions

Transaction post-conditions are a feature meant to limit the damage malicious smart contract developers and smart contract bugs can do in terms of destroying (or taking) a user's assets. Post-conditions are executed whenever a contract is deployed or a public method of an existing contract is executed. Whenever a post-condition fails, the transaction is forced to abort.

Post-conditions are meant to be added by the user (or by the user's wallet software) at the moment they sign a transaction. For example, a user may append a post-condition saying that upon successful execution, their account's Stacks (STX) balance should have decreased by no more than 1 STX. If this is not the case, then the transaction would abort, and the account would only pay the transaction fee of processing it.

Attributes

Each transaction includes a field that describes zero or more post-conditions that must all be true when the transaction finishes running. The post-condition describes only properties of the owner of the asset before the transaction happened. For a transfer transaction, the post-condition is about the sender, for a burn transaction, the post-condition is about the previous owner.

A post-condition includes the following information:

Evaluation modes

The Stacks blockchain supports an allow or deny mode for evaluating post-conditions:

• Allow: Other asset transfers not covered by post-conditions are permitted.
• Deny: No other asset transfers are permitted besides those named in post-conditions.

Authorization

Transactions can be authorized in two ways: standard and sponsored. Authorization determines whether or not the originating account is also the paying account. In a transaction with a standard authorization, the origin and paying accounts are the same. In a transaction with a sponsored authorization, the origin and paying accounts are distinct, and both accounts must sign the transaction for it to be valid (first the origin, then the spender).

Sponsored transactions enable developers and/or infrastructure operators to pay for users to call into their smart contracts, even if users do not have the Stacks (STX) to do so.

In a sponsored transaction, the user first signs the transaction with their origin account and with the intent of it being sponsored (that is, the user must explicitly allow a sponsor to sign), and then the sponsor signs the transaction with their paying account to pay for the user's transaction fee.

Encoding

A transaction includes the following information. Multiple-byte fields are encoded as big-endian.

Construction

The easiest way to construct well-formed transactions is by using the Stacks.js Transactions library. With that library, you can construct the following transaction types:

• Stacks token transfer
• Smart contract deploy
• Smart contract function call

When constructing transactions, it is required to set the network the transaction is intended for. This can be either mainnet or testnet.

Stacks token transfer

import { makeSTXTokenTransfer } from '@stacks/transactions';
import { StacksTestnet, StacksMainnet } from '@stacks/network';

const BigNum = require('bn.js');

const txOptions = {
  recipient: 'SP3FGQ8Z7JY9BWYZ5WM53E0M9NK7WHJF0691NZ159',
  amount: new BigNum(12345),
  senderKey: 'b244296d5907de9864c0b0d51f98a13c52890be0404e83f273144cd5b9960eed01',
  network: new StacksTestnet(), // for mainnet, use `StacksMainnet()`
  memo: 'test memo',
  nonce: new BigNum(0), // set a nonce manually if you don't want builder to fetch from a Stacks node
  fee: new BigNum(200), // set a tx fee if you don't want the builder to estimate
};

const transaction = await makeSTXTokenTransfer(txOptions);

Smart contract deployment

import { makeContractDeploy } from '@stacks/transactions';
import { StacksTestnet, StacksMainnet } from '@stacks/network';
const BigNum = require('bn.js');

const txOptions = {
  contractName: 'contract_name',
  codeBody: fs.readFileSync('/path/to/contract.clar').toString(),
  senderKey: 'b244296d5907de9864c0b0d51f98a13c52890be0404e83f273144cd5b9960eed01',
  network: new StacksTestnet(), // for mainnet, use `StacksMainnet()`
};

const transaction = await makeContractDeploy(txOptions);

Smart contract function call

import { makeContractCall, BufferCV } from '@stacks/transactions';
import { StacksTestnet, StacksMainnet } from '@stacks/network';

const BigNum = require('bn.js');

const txOptions = {
  contractAddress: 'SPBMRFRPPGCDE3F384WCJPK8PQJGZ8K9QKK7F59X',
  contractName: 'contract_name',
  functionName: 'contract_function',
  functionArgs: [bufferCVFromString('foo')],
  senderKey: 'b244296d5907de9864c0b0d51f98a13c52890be0404e83f273144cd5b9960eed01',
  // attempt to fetch this contract's interface and validate the provided functionArgs
  validateWithAbi: true,
  network: new StacksTestnet(), // for mainnet, use `StacksMainnet()`
};

const transaction = await makeContractCall(txOptions);

Clarity value types

Building transactions that call functions in deployed Clarity contracts requires you to construct valid Clarity values to pass to the function as arguments. The Clarity type system contains the following types:

The Stacks.js Transactions library contains TypeScript types and classes that map to the Clarity types, in order to make it easy to construct well-typed Clarity values in JavaScript. These types all extend the abstract class ClarityValue.

Here are samples for Clarity value constructions using this library:

// construct boolean Clarity values
const t = trueCV();
const f = falseCV();

// construct optional Clarity values
const nothing = noneCV();
const something = someCV(t);

// construct a buffer Clarity value from an existing buffer
const buffer = Buffer.from('foo');
const bufCV = bufferCV(buffer);

// construct signed and unsigned integer Clarity values
const i = intCV(-10);
const u = uintCV(10);

// construct principal Clarity values
const address = 'SP2JXKMSH007NPYAQHKJPQMAQYAD90NQGTVJVQ02B';
const contractName = 'contract-name';
const spCV = standardPrincipalCV(address);
const cpCV = contractPrincipalCV(address, contractName);

// construct response Clarity values
const errCV = responseErrorCV(trueCV());
const okCV = responseOkCV(falseCV());

// construct tuple Clarity values
const tupCV = tupleCV({
  a: intCV(1),
  b: trueCV(),
  c: falseCV(),
});

// construct list Clarity values
const l = listCV([trueCV(), falseCV()]);

If you develop in TypeScript, the type checker can help prevent you from creating wrongly-typed Clarity values. For example, the following code won't compile since lists are homogeneous in Clarity (meaning they can only contain values of a single type). It is important to include the type variable BooleanCV in this example; otherwise the TypeScript type checker won't know which type the list is of and won't enforce homogeneity.

const l = listCV < BooleanCV > [trueCV(), intCV(1)];

Setting post-conditions

The Stacks.js Transactions library supports the construction of post-conditions.

Here is an example of a post-condition that ensures an account's balance will only decrease by no more than 1 STX:

const account = 'SP2ZD731ANQZT6J4K3F5N8A40ZXWXC1XFXHVVQFKE';
const comparator = FungibleConditionCode.GreaterEqual;
// assuming the Stacks (STX) balance before the transaction is 12346
const amount = new BigNum(12345);

const standardSTXPostCondition = makeStandardSTXPostCondition(
  account,
  comparator,
  amount
);

const txOptions = {
  ..., // other transaction options
  postConditions: [standardSTXPostCondition]
}

const transaction = await makeContractCall(txOptions);

Serialization

A well-formed transaction construct is encoded in Recursive Length Prefix ("RLP"). RLP encoding results in a variable-sized byte array.

In order to broadcast transactions to and between nodes on the network, RLP data is represented in hexadecimal string (also called the raw format).

The Stacks.js Transactions library supports serialization of transactions.

Raw format

Broadcasting transactions directly to the Stacks Blockchain API or Node RPC API requires the transaction to be serialized and in hexadecimal representation.

// to see the raw serialized tx
const serializedTx = transaction.serialize().toString('hex');

console.log(serializedTx);

The preceding method returns the following string:

$ 
8080000000040015c31b8c1c11c515e244b75806bac48d1399c77500000000000000000000000000000000000127e88a68dce8689fc94ff4c186bf8966f8d544c5129ff84d95a2459b5e8e7c39430388f6c8f85cce8c9ce5e6ec1e157116ca4a67d65ab53768b25d5fb5831939030200000000000516df0ba3e79792be7be5e50a370289accfc8c9e03200000000000f424068656c6c6f20776f726c640000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000Copy

Transaction IDs are generated by hashing the raw transaction with sha512/256

JSON format

When called the Stacks Blockchain API or Node RPC API, transactions returned will be serialized in a JSON format. Here is a token transfer transaction:

{
  "tx_id": "0x77cb1bf0804f09ad24b4c494a6c00d5b10bb0afbb94a0d646fa9640eff338e37",
  "nonce": 5893,
  "fee_rate": "180",
  "sender_address": "STB44HYPYAT2BB2QE513NSP81HTMYWBJP02HPGK6",
  "sponsored": false,
  "post_condition_mode": "deny",
  "post_conditions": [],
  "anchor_mode": "any",
  "block_hash": "0xf1e54a3acd04232f1362c09d5096b095363158348303396ea5fc5092e1d8788f",
  "parent_block_hash": "0x3de356eb5afa5d7b781f6a925d31d69d218b772ec995930b4e15d92bd15443f9",
  "block_height": 13984,
  "burn_block_time": 1622678407,
  "burn_block_time_iso": "2021-06-03T00:00:07.000Z",
  "canonical": true,
  "tx_index": 2,
  "tx_status": "success",
  "tx_result": {
    "hex": "0x0703",
    "repr": "(ok true)"
  },
  "microblock_hash": "",
  "microblock_sequence": 2147483647,
  "microblock_canonical": true,
  "event_count": 1,
  "events": [],
  "tx_type": "token_transfer",
  "token_transfer": {
    "recipient_address": "STZ4C5RT4WH4JGRQA5E0ZF5PPSQCVY1WRB6E2CGW",
    "amount": "500000000",
    "memo": "0x46617563657400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
  }
}

Deserializing

Serialized, raw transactions can be deserialized without access to the internet using the Stacks.js Transactions library:

import { BufferReader, deserializeTransaction } from '@stacks/transactions';

// receive raw transaction
const serializedTx = '808000000...';

const bufferReader = new BufferReader(Buffer.from(serializedTx));
const deserializedTx = deserializeTransaction(bufferReader);

// print memo
console.log(deserializedTx.payload.memo.content);

Signature and verification

Every transaction contains verifiable signatures that certify its authenticity. These signatures are generated by signing the transaction hash with the origin's private key. The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is used for signing, with the curve set to secp256k1. The internal structure that encapsulates the signature is the spending condition. Spending conditions include several parameters, such as the public key hash, nonce, fee rate and the recoverable ECDSA signature.

When constructing a transaction using Stacks.js, you can supply the private key and signing will be completed automatically. If you would like to sign the transaction manually, use the TransactionSigner class.

Below are the steps taken to generate the signature internal to the transaction library.

Signing steps

1. 1Generate a transaction hash for signing. This is the SHA512/256 digest of the serialized transaction before a signature is added.
2. 2Append the authorization type, fee amount and nonce to the transaction hash to create the signature hash.
3. 3Generate the SHA512/256 hash of the resulting string from the previous step.
4. 4Sign the hash using ECDSA and the origin private key.
5. 5Add the resulting recoverable ECDSA signature to the transaction spending condition.

Single signature transactions

As the name implies, a single signature transaction contains 1 signature from the origin account that authorizes a token spend or smart contract deploy/execution.

Multi-signature transactions

For multi-sig accounts, multiple keys must sign the transaction for it to be valid.

Sponsored transactions

A sponsored transaction is one where a second signer sets and pays the transaction fees. The origin must sign the transaction first before the sponsor signs.

Broadcast

With a serialized transaction in the raw format, it can be broadcast to the network using the POST /v2/transactions endpoint:

$ 
curl --location --request POST 'https://api.testnet.hiro.so/v2/transactions' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/octet-stream' \
--data-raw '<tx_raw_format>'Copy

The API will respond with a HTTP 200 - OK if the transaction was successfully added to the mempool.

There is no explicit time constraint between the construction of a valid signed transaction and when it can be broadcast. There are, however, some constraints to be aware of. The following reasons can deem a transaction invalid after some period:

• Token transfer: Nonce changed in-between construction and broadcast
• Contract call or deploy: Block height is evaluated (with at-block) and changed in-between construction and broadcast

Mempool

Once a transaction has been successfully broadcast to the network, the transaction is added to the mempool of the node that received the broadcast. From the [Bitcoin wiki][]: "a node's memory pool contains all 0-confirmation transactions across the entire network that that particular node knows about."

So, the set of transactions in the mempool might be different for each node in the network. For example, when you query the mempool endpoints on api.mainnet.hiro.so, the response reflects the set of unconfirmed transactions known to the nodes that service that API.

Miners can employ different heuristics and strategies for deciding which transactions to admit into the mempool and which transactions to include from the mempool when mining a block. Some transactions may be rejected outright (for example, if there are insufficient funds at an address) while others might be accepted into the mempool, but not mined into a block indefinitely (for example, if the transaction fees are too low).

Transactions that are admitted in the mempool but not yet mined are said to be "pending." The current implementation of stacks-blockchain discards pending mempool transactions after [256 blocks][].

Best practices

• Nonce: It's crucial that transactions use the correct nonce. Using an incorrect nonce makes it less likely that the transaction is mined in a timely manner. To determine the correct nonce, query the [accounts][] endpoint of the node you intend to broadcast your transaction to. The value of the nonce field in the response is the next nonce that the node expects to consume for that account. Nonce starts at 0, so the first transaction from an account should be set to nonce=0.
• Transaction chaining: Even when using the correct nonce, transactions might arrive at a node out-of-order. For instance, a transaction with nonce=1 may arrive in the mempool before a nonce=0 transaction. Stacks nodes admit such out-of-order transactions in the mempool, but only up to a limit ([25 in the current implementation][]). So, you should limit any chain of unconfirmed transactions from a single account to less than 25. Making this limit higher has downsides, discussed in this issue. If you need to send more than 25 transactions per block, consider using multiple accounts or a smart-contract based approach. See this tool, for example, that allows up to 200 token transfers in a single transaction.

Querying

Transactions on the Stacks network can be queried using the Stacks Blockchain API. The API exposes two interfaces, a RESTful JSON API and a WebSockets API.

Get recent transactions

Recent transactions can be obtained through the GET /extended/v1/tx endpoint:

$ 
curl 'https://api.testnet.hiro.so/extended/v1/tx'Copy

Sample response:

{
  "limit": 10,
  "offset": 0,
  "total": 101922,
  "results": [
    {
      "tx_id": "0x5e9f3933e358df6a73fec0d47ce3e1062c20812c129f5294e6f37a8d27c051d9",
      "tx_status": "success",
      "tx_type": "coinbase",
      "fee_rate": "0",
      "sender_address": "ST3WCQ6S0DFT7YHF53M8JPKGDS1N1GSSR91677XF1",
      "sponsored": false,
      "post_condition_mode": "deny",
      "block_hash": "0x58412b50266debd0c35b1a20348ad9c0f17e5525fb155a97033256c83c9e2491",
      "block_height": 3231,
      "burn_block_time": 1594230455,
      "canonical": true,
      "tx_index": 0,
      "coinbase_payload": {
        "data": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Get mempool transactions

Mempool (registered, but not processed) transactions can be obtained using the GET /extended/v1/tx/mempool endpoint:

$ 
curl 'https://api.testnet.hiro.so/extended/v1/tx/mempool'Copy

Sample response:

{
  "limit": 96,
  "offset": 0,
  "total": 5,
  "results": [
    {
      "tx_id": "0xb31df5a363dad31723324cb5e0eefa04d491519fd30827a521cbc830114aa50c",
      "tx_status": "pending",
      "tx_type": "token_transfer",
      "receipt_time": 1598288370,
      "receipt_time_iso": "2020-08-24T16:59:30.000Z",
      "fee_rate": "180",
      "sender_address": "STB44HYPYAT2BB2QE513NSP81HTMYWBJP02HPGK6",
      "sponsored": false,
      "post_condition_mode": "deny",
      "token_transfer": {
        "recipient_address": "ST1GY25DM8RZV4X15X07THRZ2C5NMWPGQWKFGV87F",
        "amount": "500000",
        "memo": "0x46617563657400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
      }
    }
  ]
}

The memo field is represented as a hexadecimal string of a byte buffer

Filter by type

Recent transactions can be filtered by transaction type using the type query parameter:

$ 
curl 'https://api.testnet.hiro.so/extended/v1/tx/?type=contract_call'Copy

Get transaction by ID

A specific transaction can be obtained using the GET /extended/v1/tx/<tx_id> endpoint:

$ 
curl 'https://api.testnet.hiro.so/extended/v1/tx/<tx_id>'Copy

Sample response:

{
  "limit": 96,
  "offset": 0,
  "total": 5,
  "results": [
    {
      "tx_id": "0xb31df5a363dad31723324cb5e0eefa04d491519fd30827a521cbc830114aa50c",
      "tx_status": "pending",
      "tx_type": "token_transfer",
      "receipt_time": 1598288370,
      "receipt_time_iso": "2020-08-24T16:59:30.000Z",
      "fee_rate": "180",
      "sender_address": "STB44HYPYAT2BB2QE513NSP81HTMYWBJP02HPGK6",
      "sponsored": false,
      "post_condition_mode": "deny",
      "token_transfer": {
        "recipient_address": "ST1GY25DM8RZV4X15X07THRZ2C5NMWPGQWKFGV87F",
        "amount": "500000",
        "memo": "0x46617563657400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Garbage collection

Broadcast transactions stay in the mempool for 256 blocks (~42 hours). If a transaction is not confirmed within that time, it is removed from the mempool.

Most transactions stay in the mempool due to nonce issues. If you see a transaction pending for an unusual time, review the nonce of the account and the transaction.

If a transaction is removed from the mempool, the transaction was not processed, and no changes were made to the blockchain state.