By presenting a counterparty with the data elements that are needed along with the Merkle branches linking them to the root hash, as seen in the diagrams below, that counterparty can sign the entire transaction whilst only being able to see some of it. Additionally, if the counterparty needs to be convinced that some third party has already signed the transaction, that is also straightforward. Typically an oracle will be presented with the Merkle branches for the command or state that contains the data, and the timestamp field, and nothing else. The resulting signature contains flag bits indicating which parts of the structure were presented for signing to avoid a single signature covering more than expected.