Bitcoins: Protocol and Algorithms

Date Tue 28 February 2017 By Emmanuel Fleury Category security

Last year, I worked together with a student (Élise Alfieri) at understanding Bitcoins and Blockchain protocols. What can be found on the Internet is so messy and obscure that it really required a lot of thinking and reading to get all the details right.

Once we understood most of the protocol, we decided to write a bottom-up explanation of it. Starting from the required properties of a digital currency up toward the whole protocol explained. I did the presentation already several times and got a good percentage of deep understanding of the underlying mechanisms of Bitcoins.

Still, we are missing a few details, but the understanding of the concepts on which you build the trust of the whole protocol are here and this is probably the most important things to explain (in my humble opinion).

I hope that other people will enjoy reading and will get inspired by these slides. On my side, I will probably try to focus on the Blockchain issues and the concept of smart-contracts that can be handle in it.

Material

  • Bitcoins: Protocol and Algorithms (slides).