ECDSA — Satoshi’s Genius Selection or A Burden on A More Distributed and Resilient World?
Did Satoshi get it right?
Out with the old (DSA), in with the new (ECDSA)
And so, over a decade ago, Satoshi Nakamoto selected the secp256k1 elliptic curve for his new invention: Bitcoin. At the core of this was the selection of a random 256-bit value (sk — the private key), and then the creation of a public key (pub = sk.G). The private key could be used to digitally sign a transaction, and the public key would then prove it. It was just so simple, and where the elliptic curve calculations were so much faster than the ageing RSA method and its related signature method: DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm).
Thus, all Bitcoin owners need to do is keep their private key safe, and they can trade with a cryptocurrency without the need for banks to provide that trust for them. But, what was needed was an efficient digital signature method … and so Satoshi turned to ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm), and then magic happened. With this, Bob could take a hash of the transaction, and then create a digital signature with his private key. Everyone could then check this transaction using his public key. It was just beautiful in its simplicity and in the way it could run on devices with limited…
