Techniques for masking and unmasking cyclic redundancy check bits for early termination of decoding

Various aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to wireless communication. In some aspects, a receiving node may determine a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) based at least in part on log-likelihood ratios (LLRs) associated with downlink control information (DCI) received from a transmitting node. The receiving node may perform a full unmasking of the CRC using a radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) based at least in part on a descrambling of the CRC with the RNTI, wherein a number of bits associated with the RNTI is associated with a number of bits associated with the CRC. The receiving node may initiate an early termination of a decoding of the LLRs based at least in part on the full unmasking of the CRC. Numerous other aspects are described.