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Unlock Funds Owned by an Alias

An alias account may own funds in the ledger two ways:

  • Locked directly in its alias output.
  • Locked in other outputs to the address of the alias.

The global alias address is derived from the unique Alias ID. Technically, the alias address is the concatenation of the Alias Address Type and the Alias ID. A practical example from TIP-31:

  • Output ID (34-byte) that created the alias: 52fdfc072182654f163f5f0f9a621d729566c74d10037c4d7bbb0407d1e2c6490000
  • Alias ID, BLAKE2b-256 hash (32-byte): fe80c2eb7c736da2f7c98ecf135ee9e34e4e076afe6e1dfebc9ec578b8f56d2f
  • Serialized alias address (33-byte): 08fe80c2eb7c736da2f7c98ecf135ee9e34e4e076afe6e1dfebc9ec578b8f56d2f
  • Bech32 string:
  • IOTA (64-char): iota1prlgpsht03ekmghhex8v7y67a835uns8dtlxu807hj0v279c74kj76j6rev
  • IOTA Testnet (64-char): atoi1prlgpsht03ekmghhex8v7y67a835uns8dtlxu807hj0v279c74kj7autzrp
  • Shimmer (63-char): smr1prlgpsht03ekmghhex8v7y67a835uns8dtlxu807hj0v279c74kj7dzrr0a
  • Shimmer Testnet (63-char): rms1prlgpsht03ekmghhex8v7y67a835uns8dtlxu807hj0v279c74kj7e9ge5y

Anyone can send funds in the ledger to the address of the alias, while only the current state controller is able to unlock those funds by including the alias itself in the very same transaction. An alias address doesn't have a private key for signing unlocks, therefore one has to prove that they can unlock the alias output that created the alias address.

Example Transaction​

Transaction E shows the process of alias unlocking. Basic Output #3 holds funds that are locked to the address of the alias. The state controller initiates a state transition and includes the basic output in the same transaction. The Unlock for Basic Output #3 is an Alias Unlock that references the Unlock of the alias that defines aliasAddress.

You should note that an Alias Unlock may only reference an unlock at a lower index within the transaction to prevent circular unlocking without any signature. Due to this reason, it is possible to intentionally deadlock aliases by locking them to each other's alias address. Clients should implement safety mechanisms to prevent accidental user errors.

Transaction E - Consuming Alias owned funds