In previous post, we’ve got some general ideas about ECDSA, this post will focus on intuitions behind secp256k1, the set of parameters Bitcoin used. Before we dive in, we can get a glimpse of what it looks like(secp256k1.png).
More info: Recommended Elliptic Curve Domain Parameters: page 15.
ECDSA and Bitcoin I: Intuition About Elliptic Curve
The set of parameters Bitcoin used is called secp256k1. It’s one of the Standards for Efficient Cryptogrpahy(SEC) or Standards for Efficient Cryptography Group (SECG). SEC or SECG is base on Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm(ECDSA). Before dive in, we can get a glimpse of what the algorithm looks like in Brown et al’s publication(ec1.png, ec2.png).
More info: Elliptic Curve Cryptography: page 6-7
