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What is schnorr signature? In this article, COINSTRATEGISTS will provide information about the Schnorr signature algorithm, an alternative to ECDSA, which promises to bring many interesting changes to Bitcoin.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF DIGITAL SIGNATURES
Digital signatures work similarly to handwritten signatures but are much more secure, almost impossible to forge. They have many applications, including proving you wrote a particular message. You can generate a public key from your private key (some of which you should keep secret) by performing mathematical operations on the secp256k1 curve, and from this public key, generate a public address.
Public keys can be shared without revealing important information, helping others verify your identity or receive cryptocurrency. The private key allows you to create a digital signature, and anyone can check the message signed with the public key to confirm its validity.
In Bitcoin, each transaction is digitally signed to confirm that you are sending coins that were previously sent to you. Nodes on the network will check the ECDSA signature to confirm the validity of the transaction, if there is no match, the transaction will be rejected.
WHAT IS SCHNORR SIGNATURE?
Schnorr signatures are another type of scheme that works similarly to the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) that Bitcoin currently uses, but with some advantages. Although Schnorr signatures predate ECDSA, they were not integrated into Bitcoin from the beginning.
One reason may be that Claus P. Schnorr, the creator of this diagram, patented it. The patent expired in early 2008, several months before the Bitcoin white paper was released, but the scheme has not yet been fully standardized. Therefore, Satoshi Nakamoto chose ECDSA, which was more widely accepted.
WHY IS THE SCHNORR SIGNATURE BENEFICIAL?
The Schnorr signature quite simply has a strong characteristic of linearity. This makes signatures particularly attractive for certain operations, especially multi-signature transactions. Although Bitcoin already supports multisig, the current implementation is not the most optimal.
When you create a multisig address, the depositor does not need to know the conditions for spending the input. They may not even know that they are sending funds to a multisig address, except that the unique characteristic is that the address begins with “3”.
But when you want to transfer money, you will reveal the address information. To spend 5 BTC, all three people must present a valid public key and signature. When you transfer money, the entire network can see what happened by looking at the blockchain.
If you have a larger multisig (e.g. 8 out of 10), then you will take up quite a bit of space on the blockchain, making the transaction longer and more expensive due to the increased number of bytes.
Schnorr Signature is seen as a cutting-edge solution that addresses privacy and scalability issues in the cryptocurrency space. Allows signatures from multiple people to be aggregated into a single signature, saving space and making it more difficult for observers to identify the person who signed the transaction.
– Read more what is fiat currency?
WHEN WILL SCHNORR SIGNATURES BE IMPLEMENTED FOR BITCOIN?
Schnorr signatures are not certain to be applied to Bitcoin in the future. Implementing protocol improvements to Bitcoin, such as Schnorr signatures, often take a long time to gain consensus from the vast community of Bitcoin users.
Developers such as Pieter Wuille, Jonas Nick and Tim Ruffing from Bitcoin Core have come up with a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) to introduce Schnorr signatures, but implementation remains challenging.
Blockstream has developed MuSig, an implementation that allows signature and key aggregation, which may underpin the implementation of Schnorr signatures in Bitcoin. Integrating Schnorr signatures into the Bitcoin source code will likely be a partial change, not a separate change, but it will still take time and effort to achieve community consensus and widespread implementation.
CONCLUDE
What is Schnorr signature? This is one of the anticipated peaks in Bitcoin’s current journey. Once deployed, it can deliver important privacy and scalability benefits. Hope this article has helped you understand better! Thank you for taking the time to read.
