Glossary · Smart Contracts

Script address.

An address whose payment credential is a script hash. UTxOs here can only be spent if the script approves.

Think of it as

An address whose owner is a piece of code, not a person. To unlock a UTxO here you don't sign, you prove the script's rules are met.

In depth

Where a regular address is keyed by a public-key hash and spent by a signature, a script address is keyed by the hash of a validator script. To spend a UTxO at a script address, the transaction must include or reference the script body (CIP-33 reference scripts), supply a redeemer, and provide the datum (either inline on the UTxO per CIP-32, or in the witness set if the UTxO stores only a datum hash). The script must then succeed.

Example

A DEX liquidity pool lives at a script address: anyone can swap against it, but only by submitting a transaction that the pool’s validator accepts.

Next on this path

  1. Validator A pure script that gates a UTxO. Returns pass or fail given Datum, Redeemer and Script Context.
  2. Inline datum A datum stored directly inside the UTxO it belongs to, instead of as a hash that the spender has to resolve.