Cryptographic PrimitivesΒΆ
Algorand Smart Contracts support 4 cryptographic primitives, including 3 cryptographic hash functions and 1 digital signature verification. Each of these cryptographic primitives is associated with a cost, which is a number indicating its relative performance overhead comparing with simple teal operations such as addition and substraction. All TEAL opcodes except crypto primitives have cost 1. Below is how you express cryptographic primitives in PyTeal:
| Operator | Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|
Sha256(e) |
7 | SHA-256 hash function, produces 32 bytes |
Keccak256(e) |
26 | Keccak-256 hash funciton, produces 32 bytes |
Sha512_256(e) |
9 | SHA512-256 hash function, produces 32 bytes |
Ed25519Verify(d, s, p) |
1900 | 1 if s is the signature of d signed by p (PK), else 0 |
These cryptographic primitives cover the most used ones in blockchains and cryptocurrencies. For example, Bitcoin uses SHA-256 for creating Bitcoin addresses; Alogrand uses ed25519 signature scheme for authorization and uses SHA512-256 hash function for creating contract account addresses from TEAL bytecode.