# [−][src]Crate merlin

## Merlin: composable proof transcripts for public-coin arguments of knowledge

Merlin is a STROBE-based construction of a proof transcript which applies the Fiat-Shamir transform to an interactive public-coin argument of knowledge. This allows implementing protocols as if they were interactive, committing messages to the proof transcript and obtaining challenges bound to all previous messages.

In comparison to using a hash function directly, this design provides support for:

• multi-round protocols with alternating commit and challenge phases;

• natural domain separation, ensuring challenges are bound to the statements to be proved;

• automatic message framing, preventing ambiguous encoding of commitment data;

• and protocol composition, by using a common transcript for multiple protocols.

In addition, Merlin provides a transcript-based rand_core::RngCore instance for use by the prover. This provides synthetic randomness derived from the entire public transcript, as well as the prover's witness data, and an auxiliary input from an external RNG.

## Features

The nightly feature is passed to clear_on_drop; it may be replaced with a no-op in the future (since clear_on_drop is an implementation detail).

The debug-transcript feature prints an annotated proof transcript to stdout; it is only suitable for development and testing purposes, should not be used in released crates, and should not be considered stable.

An example of an annotated transcript for a Bulletproof rangeproof can be found here.

This project is licensed under the MIT license; see LICENSE.txt for details.
 Transcript A transcript of a public-coin argument. TranscriptRng An RNG providing synthetic randomness to the prover. TranscriptRngBuilder Constructs a TranscriptRng by rekeying the Transcript with prover secrets and an external RNG.