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High 72 Bitcoin

Return error for psbt if explicit amounts/assets deleted

Public commit record

What the developer wrote

Authored by Tom Trevethan

50/100 · Thin
Return error for psbt if explicit amounts/assets deleted
✓ Specific, descriptive subject✓ Names a concrete action or component! No meaningful explanatory body
The short version

What changed, and why it matters

This commit fixes a security bug in how the Elements wallet signs partially-signed Bitcoin transactions (PSBTs) for confidential (blinded) payments. Previously, a malicious counterparty could remove the plain-text amount and asset fields from a transaction output before asking the wallet to sign. The wallet would then unblind the output and blindly trust whatever hidden value the counterparty had committed to, potentially allowing the wallet to sign away funds without knowing the real amount or asset type. The patch now refuses to sign if those explicit fields are missing, and replaces internal 'this can never happen' crash assertions with proper error returns, because the transaction data comes from outside the wallet.

Recommended action

Treat this as a security fix and include it in the next release. Users handling confidential transactions with PSBTs, especially multi-party or hardware-wallet workflows, should upgrade. Review related PSBT signing paths for similar reliance on optional explicit fields.

Security signals we found

01

Missing input validation on attacker-controlled PSBT data

02

Blinding proof verification relied on explicit fields that could be omitted by a counterparty

03

Assertions replaced with safe error returns for off-host data

04

Potential for wallet to sign a transaction with attacker-chosen confidential value/asset commitments

Risk score

Why this scored 72/100

Our methodology →
Potential impact 22/30
Exploitability 16/25
Stealth signal 12/15
Affected reach 10/15
Confidence 8/10
Evidence quality 4/5
Human-validated context

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