SHA

No_Sir_601

This is very important to me. I won’t consider any DM’s and I’m very aware of scams. I believe in bitcoin and I want to put it in a place for long term security. Thank you in advance. Your text gives SHA2/512 hash: `ccdae8d3a706eca232606a6a6fb2db33684ced94eef56e6f37cca1a66ff0d840dc479956927a4be74cc90301d03bfa26ba8a56c95e10aa7178dd72c9e01c57d6` Which is used as the entropy to generate your 24 word secret phrase that gives: `picnic cook biology acid merit panic vague recipe tribe member blast divert festival regular smooth chronic skull daring bulb rule brown poet confirm dream` That gives your Bitcoin address: m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 **bc1qg7qtvhps87elj4ppwz5txk9ez7x7jawphvtg36** Easy, and safe, and secure.

MittenSplits

Without a trustworthy trapdoor function, none of this would work. SHA-2 was the foundational innovation that unlocked Hashcash/BTC. I would also argue that hashing algorithms are inherently more secure against QC than any kind of public-private key cryptography, since there isn't a fixed 1-to-1 pairing (infinite inputs resulting in finite outputs). ECC or any other discrete log encryption scheme is going to need replacement before SHA. Which is good, because SHA is the algo currently burned onto all of the ASIC's.

CowDogRatGoose

Your understanding of how SHA-256 fit into Bitcoin is incorrect. There is much more to it than SHA-256. SHA-256 isn't even the most important cryptographic component of Bitcoin.

omg_its_dan

SHA-256 is unbreakable encryption with current technology. Every hack or failure has been a system or company external to Bitcoin (FTX, Mt Gox, etc)

MittenSplits

It's open source, and surprisingly simple under the hood. Not much to attack. The security is derived from SHA-256. Hashing algos are what fundamentally made BTC possible. It is just a novel use of partial hash collisions, the real innovations have been piling up for years behind the scenes (ECC/proof-of-work). It really is as strong as everyone says it is. And far more secure than any other finacial network on Earth.

QuickShotMan

SHA256 will be hacked .. the NSA has the puzzle solved with AI and Quantum pc

polloponzi

SHA256 is already quantum resistant. Quantum computers are not a treat to miners. The algorithm that they can break is ECDSA which is what is used for the encryption of the public/private keys of the wallets. So they can basically guess your private key from your public one, stealing your coins.

yldf

Yes, and you could crack SHA-256 and kill Bitcoin with it. Let’s not resort to science fiction.

moonpumper

I believe we will see a solution in time. If we break SHA256 we break the internet. There's too much at stake to not build a solution.

analogOnly

there's no encryption in Bitcoin, it's just SHA256 with Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm. Basically just hashing and PKI

coinfeeds-bot

tldr; Monero v0.18.3.4 'Fluorine Fermi' has been released, featuring key updates such as the removal of support for locked transfers in the CLI, added support for Trezor Safe 5 in the GUI, and several daemon and wallet improvements. The release, resulting from the hard work of dedicated developers, includes 39 commits for the CLI and 22 for the GUI. Users are encouraged to verify their downloads with SHA256 hashes and GPG signatures. Additionally, a significant protocol enhancement, Full-Chain Membership Proofs (FCMP++), is being integrated into Monero to dramatically increase the anonymity set and enhance privacy and security features. *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.

Longjumping-Trash915

Hmm, the cryptography of Bitcoin is quite simple, It uses popular proven tech like SHA-256 and ECDSA, I don't think It has anything to do with crypto or even software engineering.

el-hermit

imo it boils down to wether one understands what a SHA-256 hashing algorithm is, and how mining difficulty is set. It’s difficult to look away once you understand the innovation that took place here.

reddit4485

I public key is different from your address! for instance, there are different address types that can be generated from the same public key: *P2PKH Address (Legacy Address): The public key is hashed using the SHA-256 algorithm, and the result is then hashed again using the RIPEMD-160 algorithm. This double-hash produces a unique hash, which is then encoded into a P2PKH address starting with 1. *P2SH Address: A script, such as a multisig script, is hashed with the SHA-256 and RIPEMD-160 algorithms, and this result is used to create a P2SH address starting with 3. If the same script is used, the same P2SH address is generated. *Bech32 Address (Native SegWit): For P2WPKH (Pay-to-Witness-PubKey-Hash) addresses, the public key is hashed similarly and encoded using the Bech32 format, producing a bc1 address.

BrainTotalitarianism

Yes, for medical research it is beneficial as it can simulate the complex protein interactions. I’m not in the medical field to be exact about this. Also tons of buzzwords in the article. They essentially just used IBM quantum circuits to generate random combinations of molecular structures then filtering it by algos and humans. Nothing super innovative they have done there. You can use quantum circuits to generate pure randomness and not pseudo randomness generated by regular computers. However it is still a very long way from breaking SHA-256 encryption, I’m saying that as the computer engineer. There’s tons of errors in the qubit states and even then it can so far do only theoretical problems with no real value to the industry.

SmoothGoing

This was written about 127 qubits and we are up to 1100+. 8+ times more in 2 years. RSA link irrelevant to bitcoin. None of these links are about SHA256.

Financial_Design_801

Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography, has explained how trying to break SHA256 would require computers built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space Talks about future developments of QC too, bitcoin is the last thing you would have to worry about https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/breaking-245-bit-elliptic-curve-encryption-with-a-quantum-computer.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/01/breaking-rsa-with-a-quantum-computer.html

taxman202o

That company was incorporated at the start of July this year and that Ben guy is clearly based in Australia as his address is 13852 keylana drive, keys borough Australia. Looking at google maps I’m not sure the street numbers even go that high. Basically there are enough red flags here to indicate a scam. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/725wtwrMt__NmDE7upwGOA195bfZF0NOrMqnfnWDQa0/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3LIKQJX2N%2F20240823%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240823T201302Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEKH%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJGMEQCID23vYG8KIbGi%2FsHNaVw%2BjxgBifdyUPUlFTeKgNMbsSaAiBYGr40cSKx7ADdkoI%2Bh1uQL5YMTuoAFtHwiwQz75GtqCrEBQiq%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F8BEAUaDDQ0OTIyOTAzMjgyMiIMod8Kc8KOkSHBQpTiKpgFeq3lfgQj0mWu1bC64%2FH4X4O9NTNhiErPfYrVXPQkDVCiUzOphgsckOMtZm5DrgLtJ066gUYKB06MUL1Sbq2oQxdJcKK6kd1OEN%2B23dVKYcXHvxly%2B%2B8pqaiqh%2BXalG6rPB14VKjYOgl2lU%2FmfLmoCuuVMd1m64IJoCHz1GIMpkE9dTeeW%2B4xH3a1QirLgxc%2F%2FwanSevzpVPMHEgr5wzOdxGT35Po0vS%2ByPAJyDj8zDkrJ5J3HTyLlSwclpULtVR928DsY3v%2FI8JpjDh9celcblv5eJQqPeOLB7en7nEOZf7V3doeL5RyWsPhZn7bryV2yJ8DEHxfzDqw%2BdGD8cyCv3piRI5Yx1ByGr7WA4E41tA3jrPZa5qb0w703yBnS2Rir1NmVRk6NHjPl0BVOnMbq3e7FI6NLETwCNr0%2Buci3TN7EhtnEHKVeS8Q0XTrztafDZ%2BBCcHqq1KU2bd9MEr%2FngCjCYlKIuG6pXUZk%2F3os4R2Rd7YQVYmqn8YrCQ7FcikP44xJGJYvc6bbe7Cp82qtXvE9Uj4imGzz0AySYbrjKEEgx4FnVWMsGwen54%2BCMzbQ66HFcbK7ZoGjOquhX6PlXW7oFNHxfCPmGkBQYtzWjxfAPEtAsyhvTVqWi21OSVpku71%2FeG%2FfF1zhXze8Hk%2BmYOGQCdSX1a%2F%2BhNB5xuhj4Kbg1qk7yy1m0Sb7tzSnL2uQvZggcobMvyBGfynNn24fpZAMAG9L0mcnGVZDUXZFJyQVfOkx7VpffqH3jgknwm7nv9O1TCh%2FNjgow1UwaDkkLGQ72jCi1C6o7wRYR9kK0%2BZW%2FHW7CRMvw0SMXNY6dJMA8RS3Uwtlv2BEiyCM5DgsHbrh2e5ot5I3OwZa%2Fmdq98fqOi8uO8qlDCI8qK2BjqyAZ1F0%2BmyVKEROQgu2QWBxngdsh%2FHNzrXOfNKZRV%2BNABU37yybdZbByfaGl%2FqzchiN%2Ff43O%2Fj4Vj6ehNJPEhxpMeLPzU68SKVo7b5eDrOQrSegRJ49BnfcCgzV0Iu2j3zVxC%2Fa%2FOmBBucGg8vRFeAMUQff5RFuDQbgYLf%2B10wi8ZmddVMXxF8IaTurkJgJjwlvdculnJxD%2BgIFzSjN0jw1nWZCWNCJbZFavYowHg0i33sgfg%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%2215821489_newinc_2024-07-05.pdf%22&X-Amz-Signature=9c2895e691a0484c5fbc597d5b40bf92e2900f3c17ad4423395f1c96dd90f36d

hackers_d0zen

What if, with enough processing power, SHA-256 is Turing Complete?

Adventurous_Mud8104

What if the AI eats SHA256 hashes for pleasure? Like humans do drugs, LOL.

birdman332

That's not how SHA256 works

yogafan00000

ASIC miners can only run 1 kind of computation extremely fast and repeatedly. In the case of Bitcoin mining, its a calculation of a double SHA256 hash digest of random number. Arbitrary code which an AI would need to use cannot be run with Bitcoin hashing processing power.

centralizedentity

In the future AI will furiously run trillions upon trillions of SHA256 computations and there's nothing us humans can do about it /s

Financial_Design_801

[The long part is a visual representation of BTC’s SHA-256, it is the entire component and is a hybrid of 2D & 3D elements - mostly 2D. I will be breaking it up into 9 sections & converting each section into 3D. Here is Section 1 completed](https://twitter.com/tomeltonart/status/1817242408972652909?s=46&t=ihVglVXC0BQSbw6j57EoaA)

Flowa-Powa

I encrypt files using SHA-256 regularly

only_merit

There is no encryption in Bitcoin consensus. SHA256 is a hash function not an encryption algorithm.

Ma4r

Please stop before you make yourself look any dumber, SHA-256 is a hashing algorithm, it transforms arbitrary length input into fixed length output, by pigeonhole principle this cannot be a lossless reversible encryption.

Flowa-Powa

SHA-256 is absolutely encryption by literally any definition you care to choose, and ECDSA is partially reliant on SHA-256 This is a frankly bizarre comment

Archophob

so, the point at which thermodynamics become the dealbreaker is reached a few bits further down the road. I don't expect quantum computers to become a challenge to SHA256 before a significant portion of the electric grip is powered by nuclear fusion. Which is still some decades away. And already was some decades away when you asked researchers some decades ago.

Flowa-Powa

If SHA-256 looks endangered due to technological advances, we will deploy commensurate technology to maintain encryption It's a 2 edged sword

DiedOnTitan

Some good points. However, I for one remain comfortable that we are very far from QC cracking SHA 256. I am skeptical that in 6 years, 2030, that we will be materially closer. The energy threshold to brute force SHA 256 is a massive wall that QC will not magically pierce. QC still needs to flip bits, it can flip orders of magnitude faster than current architectures, but not enough orders of magnitude to make it practical. Now if the SHA 256 algorithm is found to have flaws that make brute forcing the private keys much more efficient in combination with QC, that is another story. Either way, we agree that this does not threaten the long term viability of Bitcoin

BTCMachineElf

Lame. This guy thinks that whoever created SHA, the cryptography that all of the internet runs on, those were also created bitcoin. Stupid argument from a guy pushing his precious medals narative.

choicehunter

The energy cost for a quantum computer is certainly higher than that of traditional computers for the same amount of time, but overall relatively negligible and would not inhibit a brute force attack on any specifically targeted address any more than energy costs prohibit traditional targeted hacking. This will not be a serious impediment. And that's assuming the energy cost per qubit stays the same and doesn't get cheaper by 2030 when multiple companies expect to have 1M qubit QC's that would be capable of exactly this. I wouldn't use the energy prevention rationale seriously as far as private key hacking goes. I think the better argument is the incentive perspective. If someone did compromise SHA256 and stole Bitcoin, they would tank it and it would lose value until a backdated hard fork with new updates gets launched. Therefore, they would have totally wasted their effort for nothing. I also don't think the "others will be worse off" argument is a fallacy that we should stop using. That's like saying "bears, wolves, and mountain lions aren't dangerous at all because I can run away faster than my kids can." The predator could still see me as a better target (maybe to protect their young/territory or randomly got tunnel vision on me as a more fun challenge or whatever else). Other people being more vulnerable than me doesn't mean I'm not also vulnerable to being hurt and shouldn't still take precautions to protect myself. We absolutely are vulnerable to future QC as it stands right now, but we're also developing improved digital Quantum Resistant strategies to mitigate that danger in the future. I suspect a hard fork to implement this will eventually happen, but likely not before the first discovered nation state QC attack on something else against another nation state. Either way, were all in agreement that in the long run, Bitcoin will ultimately be protected and go on. My main point is that in it's current state with no changes ever made, QC will eventually have the CAPACITY to be able break a never used SHA256 Public Key. That's not saying it's going to happen, it's not saying how much it will cost, it's only saying it absolutely CAN do it. So it's not totally accurate to say Bitcoin is immune from QC attacks, because in its current form, it won't be totally immune. But it is a living network and can adapt, so it will be okay.

DiedOnTitan

There is a known theoretical minimum amount energy required to flip a single bit. I don’t think quantum computers get around this fact. In which case, bitcoin will remain unbreakable. But if somehow QC does manage to crack SHA 256, a hard fork will be developed to protect it once again. Tick tock next block. Also, all systems will be compromised, not just Bitcoin and those other systems will be far more vulnerable.

riscten

I agree. Some people are quick to point out that algorithms become outdated (for instance MD5 being superseded by SHA256), arguing that Bitcoin will be similarly replaced by some other cryptocurrency, but Bitcoin is not an algorithm. It's a piece of software, from which the inner algorithms can be swapped out as needed. The only real challenge is to achieve consensus on the change to implement. The transition to quantum resistance might induce a new fork war. Nothing Bitcoin hasn't gone through already.

negimabalamar

it is a bit hard to understand but search about "halting problem", Alan Turing proved that no machine/program can detect if itself is in an infinite loop, with AGI being a computer program it is susceptible to this problem. [Understanding the Halting Problem (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzx88YBF7dY) Imagine an AGI that improves its own code to make itself more efficient, but then, it encounters a very hard problem that leads to a possible infinity like cracking SHA256 algorithm or dividing by 0, the AGI would not avoid/skip the problem because it wouldn't know it will lead to infinity, It also wouldn't know if it itself is stuck on an infinite loop because it is busy solving the problem which leads to infinity, unless there is a human around to intervene and restart the AGI. cracking SHA256 and dividing by 0 are just few examples of a problem that leads to possible infinity, there are a lot of hard problems like this that AGI would not be able to avoid by itself

choicehunter

This stems from the fact that unused addresses are protected by SHA-256 and RIPEMD-160, while a used Private key that is exposed to the blockchain is vulnerable to Shor's algorithm due to using eliptic curve cryptography. However, even SHA-256 and RIPEMD-160 are not immune to quantum attacks and they are also vulberable to Grover's algorithm (which is less dramatically impactful than Shor's, but still an issue to consider), and while they may be MORE resistant to CERTAIN quantum attacks than ECC, no cryptographic algorithm is truly "quantum-resistant" at this time, including Bitcoin addresses with Private Keys that have never been used and exposed to the blockchain. For these reasons, the community is actively researching REAL quantum-resistant alternatives. It is definitely safer to use a new address every time, but it is a mistake to assume that an unused address with SHA-256 or RIPEMD-160 cannot be breached by a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. That is not the case and is a common misconception. BUT it is currently our best practice option until a real solution is presented...but the fact is that we will eventually need some kind of change to protect against quantum computing. We cannot keep things exactly as they are now without high risk in the long term. I hope that helps to clarify.

pushinpercs

SHA 256. If somebody breaks this bitcoin loses all value. Also, people sentiment towards bitcojn

BruceAENZ

All the fundamental risks seem unlikely. Some off the top of my head are: Miners favouring or only allowing blocks from selected addresses that have pre purchased space, undermining (or at least changing) the nature of Bitcoin. Some massive SHA256 vulnerability is a massive risk, but also very unlikely. (And it would break everything, not just Bitcoin). Finally, a broken update that isn’t spotted until it’s polluted the block space. That would be a massive blow.

i_shoot_guns_321s

China does not lead in Bitcoin mining. US based miners have more power than China. Regardless, this doesn't address the point I made. My point is that honest miners, regardless of location, are using up all available resources to mine SHA256 on planet Earth. So an attacker would have to fabricate enough ASIC hardware to overtake the entire existing global capacity. Basically impossible. With ASIC resistant chains, the majority of the hardware is *NOT* used to mine any particular chain, so obtaining the hardware for an attack is MUCH easier.

castorfromtheva

Yeah. Good bless SHA256. Without it what would mining look like... Apart of that nothing regarding Bitcoin was invented by them. They haven't any more power over bitcoin than anybody else.

i_shoot_guns_321s

> So a majority holder can't (I forget the exact name) "attack" the system or at least heavily manipulate it? Again, in a proof of work system, no, absolutely not. In a proof of stake system, yes, they can attack. > What if a government takes over majority of mining That's an entirely different scenario and attack vector, which has nothing to do with supply centralization. However, still ways to mitigate it. > This is why I feel more comfortable with Monero as that chain is ASIC resistant. ASIC resistance is a drawback, not a feature. Bitcoin mining consumes over 99% of all of Earth's ability to generate SHA256 hashes. In order to attempt a 51% attack, you need to physically build new hardware to overtake the entire planet's computing capabilities overnight. Literally impossible. With ASIC resistance algorithms, mining a particular coin is a drop in the bucket compares to global power, so all an attacker needs to do is acquire some existing equipment. This has been well understood for over a decade.

aprx4

You are confused one here. Hash rate is measure of how many SHA256 hashes can be done. But SHA256 as math function is not used to produce master private key from seed phrase or produce child private keys from master private key.

aprx4

SHA256 is only used to 'translate' public key into bitcoin address. It is hash algorithm, it does not brute force private key or seed phrase.

SmoothGoing

But it isn't needed. Bitcoin's hashing is SHA256(SHA256(Block_Header)).

emyfsh201

This raised another question for me, did the CIA actually create the SHA256 code as widely speculated sometime ago on this sub?

cheeseitmeatbags

The SHA256 code that Satoshi used was one of only a few code sets that the CIA didn't have a backdoor to. The fact that it was used seems to suggest that Satoshi knew what CIA backdoors existed and consciously chose one that wasn't backdoored. Also, Tucker Carlson is a fool and you shouldn't listen to anything he says

Financial_Design_801

Life is a gamble especially under a currency standard where it has to inflate & lose purchasing power (why save in that?) Its gambling if you don’t know what you’re doing like the majority, bitcoiners are asset managers as we identify the difference between currency in barter vs a money & SoV in asset management Most of those scenarios been debunked as well, the longest chain will always win in case of bad software, [SHA-256 breaking requires computers made from material other than on this planet](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html), & governments acting responsibly doesn’t change the fact bitcoin is harder money/SoV

Alfador8

This is a foolish attitude. Bitcoin definitely has risks. A catastrophic bug could be introduced accidentally. Or there may be one currently that we're unaware of. Or the economic majority of node runners and miners could be convinced to run a flawed version of Bitcoin. Or mining could become centralized to the point that Bitcoin loses its censorship resistance. Or SHA256 encryption could be broken. Or governments could start behaving in a fiscally responsible manner (lol). I say all this as someone who stores basically all of their economic energy in bitcoin, so obviously I think the above scenarios are unlikely, but it's irresponsible not to consider their possibilities.

pop-1988

Not optimized. An application-**specific** integrated circuit for Bitcoin mining can only calculate SHA256

pop-1988

Not BTC GPU prices soared initially because of not-SHA256 altcoin mining. Altcoin prices crashed, and only ETH mining was profitable for GPUs for a few years. Now ETH is proof-of-stake, so there's hardly any GPU mining. The lesser variant of ETH (ETC) is still GPU-mined GPU prices are no longer driven by crypto mining

No_Influence_4968

Conventional computers - never. Quantum computers, possibly, if cryptographic security wasn't improved (but, it will be). The risk is to SHA-256 hashing, not your seed phrase.

saajsiw

So you’re saying that per the original white paper there was not a finite number of Bitcoin determined by Satoshi, Specifically 21 million? Obviously the blockchain doesn’t end at 21 million only the block rewards do, my question is what prevents 51% attacks when the network hashrate drops 85% overnight when the transaction fees you earn the miners will switch to a different SHA-256 algorithm coin? We we have another fork? How divided are the devs on this topic?

davidkierz

You would be better off attacking SHA-256 than a 24-word seed phrase, and a 12-word seed phrase than SHA-256 12-Word Seed Phrase Space: 2^132 Bitcoin Private Key Space: 2^256 24-Word Seed Phrase Space: 2^264

realbacktofuture

Interesting. I did not know that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.However looks like SHA-256 remains secure against classical attacks, it is not fully quantum-resistant. The field of post-quantum cryptography is working on solutions to address the potential risks posed by quantum computing! unbelievable!!

CryptoRoast_

SHA256 is quantum resistant. This has been talked about a lot, I recommend looking into it. It's interesting 👌

mokahless

>they are starting to mine SHA512 now Who is "they?" What does mining SHA512 have to do with Bitcoin? >bitcoin addresses are bigger now The Bitcoin address spec has not changed. On a personal note - I mean no insult but I always try to ask when I see it because I'm trying to pin down the reasoning: Why the ellipses (...)? I'm trying to figure out if it's ESL people, older generations or some other group that tends to use ellipses in place of periods or commas.

QuickShotMan

what i am saying is they are starting to mine SHA512 now and bitcoin addresses are bigger now.. this is the way.. security is getting more tight .. but i will check those thank you

fluidflows

Guys. Nexus is THE quantum resistant cryptocurrency. They use Signature Chains that enhance the security of existing DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm) by publishing only the public key's hash until the key is used, while deterministically generating a new key once the old key is used. This results in high levels of security, as the attack window to brute force a private key is reduced to 500 ms. Signature Chains utilize the following cryptographic functions: FALCON (a second round contender for the NIST Post-Quantum cryptography competition), Argon2 (winner of the password hashing competition, and a superior alternative to S-Crypt or B-Crypt), and Keccak (winner of the SHA3 competition). This L1 crypto has so much too it. Worth some research!

Blockchainauditor

I don't think that's quite right. There is a little randomness/lottery to it, but it is generally who can do the most math calculations to achieve a goal (nor a random number, but a SHA256 hash based on the prior hash, the input and adding additional information - the nonce - so the resulting SHA256 has has at least the right number of 0s at the beginning. The miners iterative through a bunch of nonces until they get some result with the necessary 0s. Here is it illustrated [https://andersbrownworth.com/blockchain/blockchain](https://andersbrownworth.com/blockchain/blockchain)

CointestMod

#Bitcoin Cash Pro-Arguments Below is a Bitcoin Cash pro-argument written by a deleted user. > Bitcoin Cash was designed to match Satoshi's original vision for a "peer-to-peer electronic cash" system when Bitcoin gradually shifted into becoming Store of Value. It is a hard fork of Bitcoin with minor differences. > > **Transaction costs**: On average, transaction costs are under a penny, way less than ~$20 for Bitcoin between Jan to May 2021. This makes it much better for P2P payments and microtransactions. > > **Transaction scaling** Even though there aren't enough many people using BCH to get anywhere near the cap, it does support 200 TPS. Real transaction size is the same as Bitcoin: ~500 bytes/Tx. This shows that BCH's 32MB blocks do not have wasted empty space. > > **High total transactions**: As of Oct 2021, according to BlockChair, there have been 345M transactions for BCH, which is over half of BTC's 680M transactions. That's way higher than Cardano (16M), Litecoin (91M), and XLM (38M). > > **Faster-adjusting hash puzzle difficulty**: Bitcoin has a notoriously-bad, 2-week hash puzzle difficulty cycle. It only adjusts every 2 weeks, which often causes issues when the network hash rate changes, like when China banned its miners in 2021. Bitcoin Cash doesn't have this issue becuase it uses an auto-adjusting, 144-block, moving-difficulty for its puzzle difficulty. It's constantly adjusting to match 10-minute block confirmations. > > **Shared hash function as Bitcoin**: BCH uses the same SHA256 hash function as BTC, which means that it can piggyback off the ASIC mining infrastructure of BTC. > > **No mempool delays** > > Unlike Bitcoin, which has seen transaction delays of 100K+ transactions several times in 2021, (equivalent to waiting 7-9 hours for settlement), there are no delays for BCH. Its mempool rarely goes above 1 MB thanks to both fewer transactions and 32x larger block size. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Bitcoin_Cash) to find submissions for other topics.

HSuke

I get so many scammers contacting me via LinkedIn whenever I mark my account as Open to hiring. Scammers create fake posts perfectly matching your skills. So I put a fake skill like "SHA256 regression testing" as a Honeypot. Any recruiter who sends me a job description with that skill is obviously a scammer.

noddingacquaintance

SHA-256 is used in a lot of things, research it lol

Sure_Hedgehog4823

Giving credit ? It’s pretty common knowledge that the NSA created SHA-256 .. research it lol

HSuke

Not really. "Protocol", "Algorithm", and "hash" are just generic terms and don't have specialized crypto meanings. You first have to understand what hashing, public-key cryptography, UTXOs, blockchains, longest-chain, consensus, PoW, and DAGs are before you can understand the difference between BlockDAG and heaviest-weight, and between SHA256 and KHeavyHash. This might take hours/days of Googling and reading up learning material. No easy way to explain it to someone who isn't already technically familiar with these terms. All retail investors need to know is that Bitcoin has one of the least efficient and oldest PoW algorithms. Kaspa has one of the fastest and most efficient PoW consensus algorithms. In general, all PoW algorithms are much less efficient and secure than PoS consensus algorithms. So even though Kaspa's BlockDAG is top tier within the PoW family of consensus algorithms, it is still worse than most PoS algorithms.

fverdeja

I didn't say that quantum computers won't come, I said that they won't kill Bitcoin, all we have to do is upgrade the keys, and at maximum change the mining algorithm. Max thing Quantum computers can do to Bitcoin is find collision in SHA256, but they won't be able to undo blocks and maybe, just maybe, decipher your private key from your public key, but they'll need it in the first place, which you shouldn't be posting anywhere.

skydiver19

Of course it can, this is about brute forcing in a more realistic time frame. Just how we can break MD5 with rainbow tables easy now compared to the compute power 30-40 years ago. Just look how long it took to map the genome vs now if we were to do it. Quantum computers threaten the security of hash functions like SHA-256 by utilizing Grover's algorithm. Grover's algorithm can search unsorted databases quadratically faster than classical algorithms, making brute-force attacks on hash functions more feasible.

Typical-Green-7352

What's the threat from quantum computing? Even a quantum computer can't reverse SHA256. What do you think it would do, that would be a threat?

indigo_nakamoto

1. **Unique Genesis Block:** Litecoin has its own genesis block, which marks the beginning of its blockchain. 2. **Different Hashing Algorithm:** Litecoin uses the Scrypt hashing algorithm, while Bitcoin uses SHA-256. The choice of Scrypt was intentional to allow for more decentralized mining. 3. **Nakamoto Consensus:** Like Bitcoin, Litecoin operates on Nakamoto Consensus, and has Scrypt consensus like how Bitcoin has SHA256 consensus.

immutable_truth

SHA256 is a hashing algorithm used across computing. Hashing is a 1-way function to transform a computational input of any size into a unique and deterministic output. In simpler terms it can take something like my Reddit username and “hash” it into a random string of characters, or it can take the input of the entire Holy Bible and hash it into a different string of the same length. It’s a set algorithm, so as long as the input doesn’t change, the output will be the same. Hashing is not to be confused with encryption. While both obscure inputted data, hashing is one-way while encryption is two-way. Meaning you can revert an encrypted message to its original state with a key. SHA256 is a popular hashing algorithm used for things like data integrity and digital signatures. If you change one character of an input it creates a completely different and unique hashed string. In bitcoin, it’s used in mining, it’s used in linking blocks together, transaction verification and merkle trees. It’s a foundational building block in modern cryptography. If you know nothing about it I’m sure this explanation was confusing, but your takeaway should be: It creates unique (due to the shear volume of possible hash outputs), secure and deterministic outputs from any size input

gdmfsobtc

Do you really think that a guy with a 500K car and a SHA-256 plate in the free state of Texas hasn't considered opsec?

DigitalScrap

Yep. You can basically think of it this way (simplified): encryption supports two-way transformation (encryption and decryption) where SHA-256 (and other hashing algos) are one-way only.

Satiex

Cryptography*. SHA256 is not an encryption algorithm.

viewmodeonly

There is no way!!! Like absolutely not lol walk around your city and ask 500 people "Do you know what SHA-256 is" you will not find 25 people that will say yes or be able to find the word hash. Just no shot haha

immutable_truth

SHA256 is and was ubiquitous before bitcoin. Prolly just a software engineer

x_insomnia_o

SHA-256 is used in some of the most popular authentication and encryption protocols, including SSL, TLS, IPsec, SSH, and PGP. In Unix and Linux, SHA-256 is used for **secure password hashing**. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin use SHA-256 for verifying transactions.

viewmodeonly

Just look up SHA-256 hash algorithms. They are a key part of how Bitcoin works

viewmodeonly

How many people on average do you really think know what SHA-256 is? Be real

darkjediii

Wouldn’t it still take like 10-trillion years to brute force SHA256 even with a quantum computer

ibmagent

Cryptographer here, you can still have 12/24 words for post-quantum signatures since a small 128-bit or 256-bit seed can be expanded into a larger secret key. In fact, almost all post-quantum signatures and KEMs expand a 256-bit “seed” using the hash function SHAKE (SHA-3 XOF hash function).

Big-Finding2976

Oh I see, you believe that someone must have worked out how to crack BTC private keys and SHA256 because 7 dormant wallets containing millions of dollars worth of BTC have been reactivated recently, but none of the cryptography experts and white hat hackers are aware of this major problem and only you have realised what's happening. It seems far more likely that 7 criminals, out of thousands of criminals, were recently released from prison and recovered their wallets, or 7 people, out of thousands of people who once bought some BTC and then forgot about it, just found their long forgotten wallets in a backup or on an old laptop, or realised that their holdings are now worth millions of dollars and put some effort into recovering their wallets.

ReasonablePossum_

He doesnt need anything of that. He knows the wallet address and info of contents and activity from the blockchain. After that he only needs time, access to the blockchain (a full node copy maybe) and whatever algo/ai breakthrough he had to decrypt the keys. If this is true it means that ar least partially, btc cryptography is compromised, maybe even SHA256 needs to be changed and improved.

darkjediii

Kind of, the miner is guessing the nonce in the block header, then runs SHA256 twice to produce a hash that meets the difficulty target.

mcbergstedt

I get that much. Just the fact that it guesses the transaction hashes by using the SHA256 algorithm

kenshirriff

Bitcoin-mining-by-hand guy here. To make it clear to the OP: The algorithm is on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2#Pseudocode). There are no "black boxes". There is no mystery. There is no hidden goal to mining, no crowd computing, no AI, no quantum. You can literally perform the mining algorithm by hand and see what it does.

Alfador8

It's not a black box or a puzzle. It's just SHA256 hashing. Basically miners take a random number, add some information from the previous block, run it through some algorithms that produce an unpredictable output, and check if that output is sufficiently small. Then repeat that process as fast as possible until someone finds a number that fits the criteria. Elsewhere in the thread you described this process as a "waste of energy". The whole point is that it requires a lot of energy. Miners have to brute force the process, which means an attacker also has to brute force it, and to successfully attack they have to use significantly more energy than the non-attackers. Bitcoin is designed in a way such that the incentives for supporting the network are greater than the incentives to attack it.