ICS 15: Cosmos Signed Messages

[cwgoes]

Ported from the spec in the SDK repository.

Suggested changes/alterations to that spec:

• Organize in ICS format
• More clearly describe requirements of hashing algorithm & signing algorithm (and maybe parameterize the specification over them)
• Investigate distinction between custom messages (more easily defined in the SDK than e.g. Ethereum) and signed messages, and what use we expect for each (block explorers? DEXs? validator authentication mechanisms?)
• Include specification for signing structured data using JSON schema
• Include options for domain specification / replay prevention (nonce, block height, timestamp)

[alexanderbez]

Thanks @cwgoes, I'll take care of this shortly.

[jackzampolin]

Hell yeah @alexanderbez!

[alexanderbez]

@cwgoes can you please elaborate more on the following or possibly reword:

Investigate distinction between custom messages (more easily defined in the SDK than e.g. Ethereum) and signed messages, and what use we expect for each (block explorers? DEXs? validator authentication mechanisms?)

[alexanderbez]

Also, do we want to support messages that are both ASCII text and structured human-readable data? Can we leave this up to implementation?

[cwgoes]

Also, do we want to support messages that are both ASCII text and structured human-readable data? Can we leave this up to implementation?

Can we have a structured data standard which encapsulated ASCII-text (as a datatype option)?

@cwgoes can you please elaborate more on the following or possibly reword:

Investigate distinction between custom messages (more easily defined in the SDK than e.g. Ethereum) and signed messages, and what use we expect for each (block explorers? DEXs? validator authentication mechanisms?)

Let's think about - and write down - which use cases signed messages should be used for (maybe validator / delegator authentication, communication within wallets) and which use cases we expect Cosmos blockchains to specify custom transactions for (most actual state transitions). We can change this later, but it's useful to brainstorm.

[cwgoes]

Also this is interesting.

[cwgoes]

I now think it may be prudent to instead put this specification in the Cosmos SDK repository.

Ref #185

[cwgoes]

Per the above I'm going to close this. Feel free to reopen if you have objections.