Fix consensus ordering for cross-chains

[dr-orlovsky]

Implementation of RCP-20241013A

Alternative to #274 which takes care of situations where

• blocks on testnet have timestamps which ordering is not aligned with the height
• two different chains are used, and one doesn't report timestamps properly

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 70.49180% with 18 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Project coverage is 14.2%. Comparing base (7ae9760) to head (5ff9821).
Report is 17 commits behind head on master.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
src/vm/contract.rs	70.5%	18 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@           Coverage Diff            @@
##           master    #275     +/-   ##
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+ Coverage    13.2%   14.2%   +1.0%     
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  Files          29      29             
  Lines        3883    3938     +55     
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+ Hits          513     558     +45     
- Misses       3370    3380     +10     

Flag	Coverage Δ
rust	14.2% <70.5%> (+1.0%)	⬆️

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[zoedberg]

two different chains are used, and one doesn't report timestamps properly

Could you please explain how does this PR address this?

[zoedberg]

here #117 you said:

using block height and position in the block of the witness transaction

but this code isn't doing this, is the code incomplete or the documentation old? To me it seems a rule we should keep, to allow ordering of TXs in the same block

[dr-orlovsky]

I do not get: the code is exactly compares the block height, i.e. is doing what is said

[zoedberg]

To me it seems it's comparing just the block height, not the position of the TX in the block

[dr-orlovsky]

Oh, I see now.

#117 is outdated. In reality it happened that it is impossible to use position in the block since it is hard to compute from indexer's data. So instead we have started using opid value, which can be seen from the OpOrd structure (the ultimate operation ordering) below in this file.

[zoedberg]

Could you please explain how the OpId helps ordering TXs mined in the same block? From what I see the OpId is the commitment hash of the RGB operation, it seems unrelated to the mining status of the TX.

[dr-orlovsky]

We need to order operations, not transactions. We just utilize anchors and witness transaction to order operations, but we are not locked to just transaction information.

Since witness transactions may contain multiple operations (two anchors, a bundle per anchor, multiple state transitions per bundle, plus arbitrary large number of state extensions) txid or inside-block ordering won't help anyway

[zoedberg]

Still I don't understand how the OpId should allow a meaningful ordering of operations, since its just a hash. Could you please clarify this?

[dr-orlovsky]

Opid is just one of the factors of ordering. You asked "why we do not account for block position of witness transaction" and the answer here is "we do not need it".

Consensus ordering of operations takes many factors (listed in their priority):

1. Blockchain
2. Block height (or timestamp, when compared cross-chain in large window)
3. Operation type (extensions go in front of transitions)
4. Nonce
5. Opid

1-2 are related to witness transactions, and 3-5 to operations themselves. Normally you use nonce (which we discussed a lot with you!) to do definite ordering within the same block! But if you misused nonce and gave two different state transition the same one, then (and only then!) opid comes into play. Yes, this is not a meaningful, but at least deterministic. For meaningful ordering one must use nonce properly.