An interesting thing happened on the way to the forum.

Actually, an interesting thing happened today on Crypto Twitter. I made the terrible mistake of defending someone's elevator pitch, beginner-level explainer video on "what is Bitcoin". I took the unpopular opinion that, while some would argue the technical merit of one of their statements, that Bitcoin uses encryption, I didn't think it was misleading to the novice entry-level person for whom the video was created.

This is where the nature of the argument itself broke down into lack of evidence and the "nanny nanny boo boo face" intellect of the longest defender of false narratives.

This is not going to be a short post, and it is not going to forgive for a TLDR. If you care about whether I have a logic and reasoning to back up a point about how Bitcoin was created, you will last the length of this article and be better for it. If you want the brief, create it and cite this article.

One reason that I am taking the time to write this one in particular, is that often we accept "truth" or "facts" by consensus, without anyone sticking their neck out to verify whether it was true. I have a feeling that the Bitcoin police are running the show on this one, with "nothing to see here, police line please disperse" written all over it. And, that is for humor... I support the police. I don't think people should be punished for asking the right questions, or challenging what has a suspicious odor of bully-like group-think attached.

I also wish to assert that i have absolutely ZERO problem with anyone, including Craig Wright, wishing to maintain the ongoing narrative that Bitcoin does not use encryption. It really doesn't bother me. There are reasons to argue this point. The problem, though, is that I can't find anyone fully capable of backing the statement with proof. The most interesting aspect to this, I believe, is that it calls into question the longer standing argument as to who is the real Satoshi!?!

Before moving forward, in the image of this article you will see Magritte's famous painting The Treachery Of Images, which was a famous challenge to what art defined the Surrealist movement. It literally shows a painting of a pipe, and tells us "this is not a pipe". It is surrealism in its most literal state.

So, when I am told repeatedly to accept the fact that Bitcoin does not use encryption, but rather uses a form of cryptography similar to ECDSA, and in some cases, it is said literally ECDSA, I am challenged to the same degree when I stare at Magritte's painting. 

There is a hint of truth from Magritte; it isn't a pipe. It is a painting of a pipe. But, how is it possible that using a process that is like encryption, with the stated process of encryption, could mean that only cryptography is being used? More importantly for my curiosity; why deny it is using encryption?

I do not regret my public stance. It won't be the first time that I have stated something scientifically, mathematically true, yet unpopular, that has distanced others from wanting to weigh in. If I am dead wrong, and someone can point me to a better source than the ones I've read (including my now having taken the time to actually search answers on stack exchange and Github, finding literal dozens of code-level references to "encrypt"), I consider this public action of seeking a perfectly fine way to learn one more detail I didn't know about Bitcoin.

Once an argument becomes technical and requires more than the "you're wrong and too dumb to recognize it", others shy away from the topic. Whether any of us wish to acknowledge it or not, social media is a personality game. People care more about their cred against the crowd than they do facts. And, on top, if the topic open for debate is controversial enough, you simply get banned for speaking your mind. It isn't bad enough to lose popularity by being right; now you have to worry about whether you're right for the wrong reasons. Writing history by consensus is a dangerous game.

Last year, for instance, I saw the first signs that commodities were getting a supply-chain squeeze, that prices were starting to increase, that there would be a spiraling of inflation and it was a very bad thing. I was concerned. But, my knowledge of economics made me aware of the issue 7 months before everyone else. This was very unpopular. The largest pile-on of tweets, retweets and commentary ensued over that one topic; that the prices of items was going up and it was bad. Over the past 3 weeks, people are starting to talk more and more about the cost of lumber, the 40% increase in certain food costs, and perhaps some are learning for the first time that printing more money doesn't mean it is free. Inflation means that while $1=$1 and 1 Doge = 1 Doge, the value is diminishing (okay, perhaps only for the prior). You get less from that $1, and that is not good. But, the point is, I saw it early on, I was right, and dozens publicly shamed me for being right too early. Not one of them have returned at this later time to say "y'know what, you were right". Insight is rarely rewarded. I don't care, but the example is relevant to today.

A second time, I was admonished for recognizing a salient point about the danger of leveraged positions. A female influencer used an explainer video about make-up as a way to explain trading futures on Robinhood. While they did a fine job that I commended, I also offered a warning that it did not include the possibility that they don't guess right, and that some people do, in fact, lose money when they trade on leverage. Since the purpose of the video was to welcome completely new females to use Robinhood for their first experience in trading, I felt it was responsible to also suggest, that they can in fact guess wrong, and they would get stuck with holding lipstick they don't want, or nothing at all. For some extremely strange reason, others whom I respect, didn't seem to understand the extremely simple point I was making, instead stating that I don't understand leverage, that I don't understand futures. Oh dear, if they only knew how much I know about these. It was embarrassing, but not to me. It was embarrassing to the invisible audience that still to this day don't get it, but many whom are now rekt.

People get liquidated.

The reason that exchanges are all moving towards massive margins and staked lending pools is because even for the most skilled, binaries, options, contracts and perp contracts, compared to spot trading, are all gambling. Yes, they are. The fact you can hedge against losses, take a hit early, fund the margin and a myriad of things that can prevent liquidation, does not mean there is no risk. But, instead of intelligent debate, the crowd opted to believe that trading with leverage really is just as simple as picking the right color lipstick and cashing it in. Oh well. So much for academia.

So here we are, present day Crypto Twitter. I strongly regret sticking my head in the hornet's nest of misinformation. You would think I had just told evolutionists that Darwin was found on Epstein Island-lol. Okay please, please do not use your space in comments to tell me how it is impossible bc Darwin was born in... please take a joke pretty please.

Another point that may or may not guide your journey below, is that I am an audio software developer. I have coordinated with a few different teams of coders since 2004-ish. I am not one of them, a coder. I can read their work to find errors and help with the logical higher-level solutions, and have done so a few gazillion times, but fully accept my place in the chain. I don't write code; but I do work at a proprietary level to create things that are coded, often engineering the methodology that can be used to build original algorithms. For instance, I've worked with multi-layer simultaneous data kerneling among other processes. I've used higher level command languages to design my own installation software... big whoop. I've worked on the back-end for coded utilities we've made for challenge/response authorization keys using the computer hardware's identifier. I have created a couple of indie video games; one is a 2D arcade design inspired by Galaga, and the other is a large-format first person adventure, the latter of which required 3 years of design, some scripting language that I wrote, and mostly needed community assistance with to complete. 

The issue of the day, which I now defend with much time and many words, is whether the fact that Bitcoin uses cryptography, means that it is not using any encryption. I argue that if looking on the surface, the shallow quickie explanation, you can say that it is purely cryptographic, but the issue is that the Satoshi Bitcoin whitepaper, the science it uses, the math that is described, the small code snippet included, and the original months and those to follow proving its use, never argued against encryption as people believe. Furthermore, I'm not purely taking a laymen's perspective on this. It is an issue that should be debated for academic fun. If the Bitcoin Core team, Vitalik, Wright all weighed in right now to say that technically, there is no encryption in Bitcoin, I would be happy for them to take that position. In fact, to some degree I would expect it. They wouldn't be wrong to say it is cryptography, but even someone of much higher crypto importance than myself, would need to explain how it is that encryption is at the heart of the exact format being used for public/private key signatures, but is never encrypted. The only thing that would deter me publicly from seeing strong evidence there is specific encryption named, given function, and snippets of actual code examples all the way back to the whitepaper, is if someone could explain to me how that identical process was utilized, while not being the very encryption method specified. A little coding humor; I'm not parsing words or definitions here. I mean in the most fundamental way, that the brilliance and simplicity of the Bitcoin network, the ledger, the public and private keys, the way a transaction is initiated and the means by which messages can be attached, is all based in attaching one set of rules publicly, that cannot be hacked, without correlative dissonance. This is, by literal and even philosophical definitions; encryption.

The real reason, I believe, that people continue to assert Bitcoin's cryptography is not encrypted, is multi-part, depending on where they have learned the hard rule never to be broken. First, if you catch a whiff, you will find the argument against encryption right there in google results, so if it is on the internet it must be true. Second, the position has actually been popularized by the un-Satoshi himself: Dr. Craig Wright. Third, many who have not researched the topic believe it is stupid to call Bitcoin's process encrypted, because that is the narrative, and since the ledger is open for all to see, nothing is being encrypted. Fourth, they believe it because changing their stance means existing in a state of social awkwardness. Trust me, I am so familiar with being unpopular in what I firmly believe all evidence provides as an accurate stance, that I'm willing to go there yet again.

Now, I remind you, this will not be short, it will be worth the read if you find the topic interesting, and I also wish I had never "gone there". The time initially devoted to giving a little boost to whomever created a 1 minute explainer video, is forever lost on the larger point that Bitcoin is made on math that must be supported by public and private guarantees that the sequence of events are correct. The process by which this is achieved, is in fact encoded in an encrypted manner. Even the way that it is utilized is encrypted, but people for some reason, sometimes even good sounding reasons, aren't interested in facts. You present a truth, or at least a valid question, they walk directly into their own trap, and then they call you names. The angry fever name-calling part, is a sign that someone does not have a valid argument, or enough knowledge to back it. I am going to be fair on both sides of the argument! I will provide a fair reason for someone to state "cryptography not encryption". But, I will not stop there and leave it open ended as truth, because it is a partial, inadequate explanation for the sheer beauty in the complex simplicity of Satoshi's creation.

So, let's get down to some facts about cryptography first, and then the same for encryption.

First, let's establish that the entire argument about whether Bitcoin uses encryption, is based on the assumption that nobody is arguing that the form of cryptography is something other than digital, and that this takes place in the form of computer code. This uses math, computer science, and algorithms for logic AND for protection. Some may misunderstand this, but the purpose of cryptography is to secure the privacy of a messaging, or any piece of data, by making a hack the least likely in feasibility. Cryptography does not prevent someone from cracking a code with the goal of making it impossible to crack. It is based on the likelihood that the difficulty is a deterrent. In essence, cryptography stands to exist for the purpose of making it too hard to crack to justify the effort, time, or sequence of events.

Cryptography is a main field of study that includes anything that deals with solving codes. Encryption is a subset of cryptography. It is one of the ways cryptography is carried out. Regardless of any definition that distinguishes the two, no one can use the argument that one is algorithmic, mathematical, computer-based, and the other is not. If we were talking outside of Bitcoin and blockchain in a computer network, that distinction could be made. In fact, it has been made in the past.

Most people, if they are not simply parroting the argument they have been presented, will try to say that encryption is different, because it is scrambling the message, or changing the public-facing part of the data in order to make it hard to guess the private response. They will use the distinction that encryption can make a completely secret communication through a cipher, while Bitcoin uses cryptography because it is a completely public-facing ledger; there is nothing secretive about it.

If the primary distinction between cryptography and encryption is that cryptography is the entire field of study, and encryption is just one specific form of cryptography, then it is fair to say that no one, including myself, is arguing that Bitcoin doesn't use cryptography. It would be like arguing to me that a Ford isn't a brand of a car. My argument seems to be, that a Ford is the specific brand of car that Ford is, and the rest of the cryptography community has somehow been convinced otherwise.

So, what distinguishes cryptography from encryption? It seems simple enough, but the truth is that no matter what method is used, they both serve the same purpose, and the distinctions, in my educated opinion, cannot be found in Bitcoin's blockchain. The actual study of encryption, using code, algo's, and a method to validate something public and private, is cryptography, and in the specific utility of it, we have a purely coded digital network protecting privacy using something public and private that both must match. No one is arguing anything beyond this point without casting something out.

Cryptography must be able to validate and authenticate. Doing this successfully, while securing the identity data connected, is a successful cryptographic process. Doing this using some form of matching system like a cipher, is encryption. Doing so digitally, automatically, on computers, based on a first-come, first serve, many verify basis, exists for the purpose of preserving and permanently time-stamping the process.

I believe that, for those who have heard Bitcoin does not use encryption and also want to understand this on technical, scientific, mathematical grounds, they believe the distinction is that Bitcoin's process does not scramble the code... or encrypt it. If they do go digging, they will find evidence to back this reasoning up in the whitepaper, where it is extremely specific, that the purpose of Bitcoin is to get rid of the trusted 3rd party. Code and process will replace the 3rd party.

Why does that seem to be an argument against encryption? Because the paper specifies that 3rd party digital cash systems utilize encryption. The 3rd party validates the ledger, checking that the data provided is valid, in order to allow the transaction to complete. To protect the data going in, coming out, it jumbles up the data into a long detailed format that can only be detangled by the algo that knows the rules for the encryption. This scrambling of data that would be useless to a hacker even if they did manage to grab it, and would be protected so long as the hacker doesn't know the rules to unlock the data; the cipher. The issue, is that 3rd parties do not develop their own unique cipher securities. They use known, pre-fabricated forms of encryption to protect our data  on the way in, on the way out. Thus, hackers will usually be able to decode encrypted, stored 3rd party data if they know the rules used. Specifically in Satoshi's paper, the more drastic encryption concern is that the 3rd party stores the data in an unprotected form, and that data is passed to and from in encrypted form, but while it sits in their database, the unprotected form can be hacked and accessed. In some cases, where security is taken more seriously, institutions do use their own personal version of a form of encryption, giving an extra level of difficulty, but again, truly anyone who coded the process or has access to their internal information, can obtain their unique encryption 'language' and again breach customer privacy.

By using public, private keys, Satoshi sought to create a system that was more secure, while going against the grain of privacy all together. It was brilliant, but it was different than what we are now talking about. Encryption in the form of what is being used by 3rd parties, is not negated by making the ledger public. That is the brilliance of why Bitcoin works. Making the ledger public would not work if it was running through a 3rd party. The decentralization of the network is part of what secures the network. But, there are still certain important details kept private. No one is supposed to disclose their private keys, unless they want to get hacked. Next, the privacy of who the keys belong to is meant to remain partly secure. Forensics can disclose ownership of keys, but a distinction for this is that Bitcoin was originally designed with the thinking that a new key system would be generated every single time a transaction was made. The full level of protection was really that a "wallet" would represent a single transaction. Finally, time was truly the negotiator of validity and verification.

Here's where I think it gets interesting. Why is the assertion there to begin with? And, does it even have anything to do with the format or the code? Is there even an argument to be made about the algorithm?

I will suggest, that the argument that Bitcoin does not use encryption, is largely fueled by the statement from Dr. Craig Wright himself. In fact, it is his words that have largely been used as the internet-spider-indexed scraped reason people believe it as fact, at least for a little over a year now. And, if Wright were to be proven to be the real Satoshi, which hasn't won in court yet, but let's say he is, then why would he assert that he did not create an encrypted process unless that were true? I mean, Gordon aren't you risking your position by potentially going against the words of the actual creator?

Perhaps, but my intentions are pure, and I do not believe Wright's to be pure. I prefer not to be sued, but I argue from the perspective of the math, algo, code used to secure transactions and the network. I did not write the code. I certainly could not write it correctly myself. But, from what I am reading from Satoshi himself, the very ECDSA process that defines the digital signature proof in a public/private challenge/response, answer/reply protection of data, is defined by placing encrypted data in hash sequences.

One of the brilliant aspects of the original whitepaper, which I believe is why the network continues to work today, is that time is used as a part of the cryptographic protection. While used in broad daylight, the proof in the encryption-based pudding is the fact that you can use a public proof that something is genuine, while encrypting its private value, using a process that is both algorithmic, but also time-based. The sequence of events is used largely as the protection against fallacy. Time is used as a means of validation of privacy. This goes to the similarity between input/output validity. Someone could technically guess so well at a private response to a public key, that they guess right. It is incredibly unlikely, but the math used to protect the data is hard enough to crack to make it unlikely to ever happen. But, the best way to achieve this and future-proof a lethal hack to the process, is to use time. Bitcoin's blockchain, protected by a network, cares about when something is posted, just as much as whether the thing posted is accurate. The math will dish out the most likely correct response, but time itself will protect from a bad actor, simply for the point that it always takes longer to game the system and attempt to post a hack-answer, than it does to automatically generate the proper response. Validation by time, therefore, is one of the strongest forms of protecting private information from the network using math to always give an advantage to an honest answer.

Bitcoin's design is also based around protecting the network from attacks in its own system. Not only does the validation process need to protect private information while providing an open public ledger, but it needs to defend itself from someone, or a group, trying to gang up to overpower the network into submission. Sequence is necessary, which also means that it takes the longest time to validate the longest end-to-end ledger. The majority of the network must agree, but the way that data is passed, shared, and validated makes it increasingly harder for someone to game the network and manipulate its data. Bitcoin was also created in such a way, that the attacker would be de-incentivized to attack, meaning that whether it was reputational or monetary, the goals of successfully taking over the network aren't backed by the financial cost, electricity, sheer magnitude of what it would take to overwhelm the system. In most cases, well in every case over the last 12 years, the idea that the integrity of the network far outweighs the attempt to use the system incorrectly or to guess at a private key's correlation to the public record has remained intact.

Bitcoin was designed to use a digital signature. People will often say that Bitcoin doesn't use encryption, it uses hash function. The thing is, the hash is where data is packaged and encrypted in pieces, or chunks of data. The code where the entire network is written and sequenced, understands the hash functions and sequencing, and forces every node to share, download, sync and agree to the same ledger.

I believe it is possible that some people are confused by the public nature of the ledger. The results of a transaction are all there for everyone to read. This is built on top of the code that gives the proper commands to the network, in sequence, using time-sequenced hash functions. It is said that even sequence has a fault-system, where it has protocol for what to do if information falls out of sequence, but the network "agrees" to the validity if it is the most likely, correct source of information. Once it is written to the network, it would take overwhelming force to change the direction of what is written.

Without hash function, the Bitcoin network would not have cryptography at all. Again, I think that people are thrown off by a belief that replacing 3rd party encryption with a public ledger means that encryption is not being used. But, encryption is quite literally the specific form of cryptography being used. Calling it a Ford, when it is a Ford, does not mean that it stopped being a car.

By Satoshi's definition, the hash function in sequence, verified by all parties in the active network, is designed to replace the 3rd party, and to validate in the same manner; "minting".

Minting is by definition, creating the first, original source that cannot be mimicked. The invention here, is that the 3rd party is replaced by a gazillion 3rd parties. All parties, not "a" party, must agree on the minting, in order for the transaction to be confirmed.

The reason that hash, and sequence both work, is because the next block of data validates the one prior. Without this, we do not have a "block" "chain".

The actual hash function itself, uses encryption that is specified in the literal whitepaper. This is beyond my area of knowledge, so if someone can say Whether SHA 256 was in fact the literal method used, or better, whether the encryption used has changed over time... improved? I don't know. Going to the purity of the question, one should go to the source. The whitepaper states that it is providing its own source that checks the data, writes it to the hash, and then uses an encryption process to read the hash, validate it, and chain the result to the prior hash. The result, is public facing. But, it cannot be mimicked until after it has been written and validated. Only a private key can retrieve the final result. This is both encryption, and cryptography. It is coded. It is mathematical. It is algorithmic. It uses digital signatures. It eliminates the middle man, and it does not allow a single point of failure like the form of encryption used by 3rd parties.

Difficulty, energy, incentive all go to secure the open, public ledger. The data is all protected by a singular process that requires the entire network to sync and agree on time, the interpretation of data that is encoded, decoded, and then made public once the results are ready to be verified and permanently posted. Then, the whitepaper deals with resolving the sheer massive amount of data that would build if this process continued endlessly, by explaining the process of the merkle tree, where the roots of data are are permanently stored as the ledger, once the entirety of that process has been completed. This is to say, once the entire chain for a transaction is done, the result is given a hash that is unique and identifies the entire process, and that replaces the need for reverting to stored data about every single hash data block in the chain. Everything that was validated is now given a final validation that takes less data to secure and permanently write to the ledger.

In section 10 of the whitepaper, Satoshi deals specifically with privacy, which is another place where the actual public/private check of matching ciphers is relevant. This is where the document specifically suggests that a new key be generated for every transaction, in order to prevent forensics from identifying the owner of keys by comparing the flow of multiple transactions. Even though we can see the entire transaction take place, we aren't given the name of the person doing so, and we don't own their key for retrieval. To this extent, we should not be debating whether this is an issue of encryption vs. cryptography, but rather that the governments of the world are requiring the new 3rd party entities to make that information known to them.

So now, let's turn to another strong support for those who insist that Bitcoin does not use encryption. Dr. Craig Wright, who maintains he is the sole author of the whitepaper, the Bitcoin creator Satoshi, wrote a recent article dealing with the cryptography of Bitcoin, using enough intellectual format as to convince the reader that what he is saying is true. The issue, is that I seem to actually be on the side of the coders and cryptographers regarding the very logic Wright is providing. One has to look at intention, in this case, in place of fact. But, what would they say to the deeper meaning as such? I'm actually choosing the printed article about Wright's paper as a source, because legally, I want to discuss the topic without directly attacking what he claims to be the source information.

I do not know, I repeat, I do not know who the real Satoshi is. I will be fine with the idea that it is Dr. Wright if that proves true. There are many who are now publishing numerous articles giving reasons as proof that it is, in fact him. But, from a purely scientific analysis, the cryptographers seem to maintain that it has already been proven he is not, cannot be, the person who owns the Satoshi origin addresses. I do not know, but I use the data involved as part of my argument.

Wright makes the claim that what Bitcoin is doing is not encryption. What takes place is public and clear text. By the definition of ciphers, this means that nothing is being changed, scrambled, hidden, requiring deciphering. Except, that isn't what the whitepaper says.

The explanation that Bitcoin uses an encryption process to do something that is not encrypted, in order to maintain privacy while showing the results to the public, is a contradiction to the origin paper. Why are people not recognizing this? I suppose for the same reason Wright presents. And again, I understand his reason.

Wright is not discussing how Bitcoin works. What he is doing, is a method he either does, or doesn't know, called intellectual deconstructivism, or one could even say vocabulary-based deconstructivism. Wright's argument about Bitcoin's new way of doing things, is not a technical, scientific, mathematical or scientific discussion. It is a LEGAL one. Why did he publish the article in 2020? One only has to do a little digging to Wright's way of life, to know that his favorite activities are studying at various institutions to broaden his knowledge in fields, suing, and being sued.

I am not questioning his validity or challenging it. But, I will take the position that what is described here is a clever legalese rewording of what a hash function does, and how it does it. Again, if someone knows technically, in the code, the specific protective scheme that is being used to place a block of data, check it, verify it, and then open that data to the public to see the result, correct me if it is not, or ever has been the one stated in the whitepaper or something very similar.

While Wright correctly explains how encryption is used by traditional 3rd parties, and Bitcoin eliminates those 3rd party data breaches, and the fact that their file system KNOWS the unencrypted data, means it can be hacked even without a cipher, he works around what a hash function actually writes, by pointing to the resulting public ledger that everyone can read.

This is a legal argument that provides a basis of support to allow Bitcoin to be treated as a valid network that does not break any national or international law, as a store of value, and a form of currency, as a basis that encrypts data. It is true that the ledger of validated transactions itself is not encrypted. Anyone can read the date and value of every transaction. That is the legal point that is necessary to secure it's protection from laws that make it illegal to protect illicit activity and actors. The language used is not a technical explanation of hash function, nor is it a definition of the cryptography used with Bitcoin. The suggestion here, directly from Wright, that Bitcoin does not use encryption, never speaks to how elliptic encryption is the exact process used in the hash, but rather is a statement that legally protects Bitcoin from governmental or personal legal scrutiny that Bitcoin directly protects the identity of criminals. It is not a direct lie, to say that Bitcoin does not use encryption. In this case, the diversion is speaking to what data is being encrypted. This is slight of hand. There is no privacy in a private key, if the literal answer to unlock the public key, is completely clear text. What is clear text, is that a transaction occurred, that it came from where it came from, that it went where it is meant to go, and it has been verified from both legitimate sources and timestamped as such. The user identity never comes into play to make this happen. Anyone with the private key can retrieve what is right there in plain sight, and Bitcoin is not protecting their identity. Therefore, it is not encrypting the user and thus 3rd party risk has been removed.

But, I was never talking about encryption of the identity of the user. Were you?

Laying out the premise that Bitcoin replaces 3rd parties and risk without breaching laws regarding anonymity, he backs up this statement by saying that Bitcoin does not circumvent people being able to use it anonymously. His concern stated is that Bitcoin doesn't allow someone to break laws. His explanation of how that is true, is that if a person is required to disclose their transaction, they are still legally bound to do so with Bitcoin, and here, look, there it is on the blockchain.

Please follow with me, that while everything stated is true, one might think it means a person's identity is made public by Bitcoin's blockchain. Is that what he said? No. He is saying that Bitcoin, though it does not post data about the user publicly, is meant to be used under the same legal framework as any other monetary system; if the user has to tell the government who they are, and that they used Bitcoin instead of a bank, the user still has to tell the government. There is nothing technical in the encryption-based explanation of what Bitcoin's blockchain does. It still remains, that the hash is sequenced, protected by a process resembling SHA 256 encryption, and the results are posted publicly, but are still unusable and funds inaccessible by anyone other than the user who can answer the correct private key to the public key. The usability of a transactional result in Bitcoin, only exists in the hands of a person who knows the answer to an encrypted question. The private result of a hashed elliptic encryption, is a unique response to a publicly known, generated question.

I believe the most important part of Wright's article is where he discusses that he, Satoshi, chose EDCSA to allow the private user their safety and security of privacy, without disclosing their ownership of funds to the public. He also states that aspects of this have been changed by Bitcoin Core that arguably assist in more dangerous levels of privacy that may breach the legal spectrum. I cannot speak to this, because I do not know. But, this is what I will go over when discussing the specific type of cryptography Bitcoin is said to use.

Reading in between the lines, I see Wright making a case for Bitcoin SV compared to what he sees the Core developers doing with the original coin, and I also see specific arguments over the law as it pertains to ownership of coins and what forms of privacy are required to disclose, to breach, or validate ownership of keys. A very interesting topic, but it goes to prove that what I am reading is true; the reason Wright is asserting that Bitcoin is not encrypted, is directly tied to legal battles, not code. Ironically, one of the most purist of arguments about being a true Bitcoiner, is the statement: not your keys, not your coins. Wright, concludes his document by stating that it is not true, legally, or how he made Bitcoin. If Wright is Satoshi, please understand this means that Satoshi himself, is telling you that owning your own keys, does not validate that you are the owner of the coins protected by those keys. Part of that definition, legally binding, is why he asserts there is nothing encrypted, in a private key answer to a public address, processed in an ECDSA hash. Someone, from a coding angle, explain to me how this can be true.

So, now we have perhaps the most relevant, albeit recent, assertion that Bitcoin does not use encryption. But, in doing so, the argument was not technical for the purpose of explaining Bitcoin's design, function, code, or networking process. It was again, done for legal reasons to establish precedence that I must assume is necessary to protect his legal position on one or multiple cases. But, that is speculation on my behalf- not the kind you do in trading Bitcoin.

Now, let's look at the google search pop-up that supports people's most surface arguments that Bitcoin does not use any encryption.

Does Bitcoin use encryption?

No, Bitcoin does not use encryption. It is called “cryptocurrency” because its digital signature algorithm uses the same mathematical techniques that are used for a type of encryption based on elliptic curves. (In particular Bitcoin uses the ECDSA algorithm with elliptic curve secp256k1.)

Now, I want to be clear, if there is an argument that can (again, computer code pun intended) properly parse a difference between "uses the same mathematical techniques" and "uses encryption" please explain it to me in a way I have yet to hear, that is convincing. I am perfectly fine with hearing a better support for Bitcoin's lack of encryption than the fact that it is a public ledger, while dismissing the fact that nothing encrypted is posted in such a way that breaks a cipher.

So, as we read above, Bitcoin, as asserted by Wright, uses an ECDSA algorithm. Specifically, this stands for "Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm".

In an elliptic cryptographic function, the public key is encrypted into a shorter sentence, or signature, that saves space, takes less time to read, write and store, and is encoded. It does not tell the public what the private key answer is to its cipher. The elliptic format, is the code rules, the parameters used to encrypt what has changed from an otherwise public key, to write it to the hash, encrypted, while maintaining a relationship to the final location, the private key.

Messaging can take place in either direction from one key source to another, but what we are discussing is how it is written to the public, open ledger. The answer is something like an algorithm that encrypts the data and shortens the number of bits it represents. Part of what makes the privacy of unlocking that code secure, is that it uses a new source signature every time it generates the relationship for a unique transaction. That is why Satoshi stated in his original paper, that the safest way to use Bitcoin is to make new keys for every transaction. We have adopted a "wallet" way of thinking, which means our wallets are a single key we use over and over, which is't really how it was initially intended. Eventually, the user is giving more and more evidence of what they have, how much, when, and where it has visited. Perhaps not the safest way to use Bitcoin. This is only made worse by using exchanges that likely will be forced to KYC/AML everything.

There is an algorithm to generate a hash based on an initial, lengthy string of bits, and there is an algorithm to verify that the algorithm created the right, unique result. This is, by every definition, both cryptography, and encryption. It is a Ford automobile.

The explanation that I hear Wright using, if he were speaking to the source code process, instead of law, is that because Bitcoin tells you what the public signature is, it is not encrypted, but if that were the point of encryption, there would be no such thing as a question, answer, public, private. I hope you are seeing the logic here. The learning curve, again pun intended, to understand how breaches to improperly encrypted ECDSA processes have been left open to hacks, goes further to assert that Bitcoin is not accidentally missing the encryption phase of hashing. If the challenge/response, were not part of the function, there would be zero data to verify. Everyone could see it, everyone could use it, and there would be no protection, privacy, or security in generating new keys for transactions, because the entire data stream needed would be right there in public. Even time could not prevent an immediate theft.

So, again, why people accept the explanation that Bitcoin doesn't use encryption, because it uses a process identical to a specific type of encryption, I cannot understand. If someone can explain it to me in a way that is less cryptic, I am all for that!

Next, let's look at an interesting point to be made, in an article that uses 4 cryptographers and their logic, to speak to the "why" Wright is not Satoshi, but also suggesting something similar to what I am reading from the above article reference, speaking to why Wright's argument makes as little sense as explaining that he used a well-known form of security measure in Bitcoin called encryption, that is of course, not encrypted.

In this case, Wright is involved in a court case that deals with his identity as it pertains to his ownership of of the origin addresses in question. Someone wrote a publicly posted message to the Bitcoin blockchain, using 145 addresses, stating that Wright is a liar and a fraud, and does not own the keys to sign the message.

Based purely on logic, one would ask why a person who's entire public existence is based around guaranteeing to everyone that he is the one, true Satoshi, would he prove he owns the addresses in question, by proving that he is not Satoshi? Wright does not seem to be a person who would appreciate either the humor or the challenge, since he sues anyone who publicly claims he is not Satoshi. Wright has vaguely replied to those who question his assertions, by simply stating that they don't understand digital signatures if they think a person can write a message using a private key.

What?

Wright's explanation to what happened, is that no one signed a message. His explanation how that is possible, is simply that if you think that is what happened, you don't understand. This was baffling to those who do seem to understand; certainly better than I could. According to multiple cryptographers, the encrypted digital signature that guarantees a person owns the keys to a Bitcoin address can be used to send Bitcoin back and forth, but it can also be used to sign a message that proves the owner of the key sent it.

One could ask, that if the cryptographers are wrong, then how does anything 'Bitcoin' actually work? If you don't have to know a private uniquely generated cipher key in order to post a message to the public facing Bitcoin ledger, than how is it that anyone would be able to prove authenticity of any kind at all?

There seems to be a unison of agreement that using Bitcoin the way it is designed to work, means the only way to post such a message is to be the owner of the keys, or that the owner has shared those keys with you, making it accessible to post. The other possibility is that they broke the ECDSA code, thus broke the encryption. Yes, encryption. 

Remember at the beginning of this novel, I stated that the purpose of cryptography is not to make it impossible to crack, but rather to make it difficult enough, that there is really no benefit in trying, and the process essentially punishes you more and more, the harder you try to crack it? In this case, cryptographers are accurately stating this truth, that although the alternative explanation is possible, it is so unlikely, that it cannot be compared to the more likely answer, that someone else owns the keys and wants you to know Wright is wrong, and is not Satoshi.

I won't speak to either option, except to state that unless everyone in cryptography simply doesn't understand digital signatures, it wasn't possible to prove use of a private key and to post results to the Bitcoin blockchain, unless you had that access. The only thing that makes the possibility of signing such messages unlikely to come from anyone other than a person with access to Satoshi keys, is the fact that they are encrypted against the public-facing part of the hash.

The same Coindesk article I reference regarding the proof of private key access, goes on to make the same reference in another situation, where Wright's explanation of digital signatures is a legal one, and not a technical one. This is interesting, because in the original whitepaper, it seems transparent that the purpose of using ECDSA was to remove the dangers of 3rd party breaches of data, removing the need to trust a 3rd party at all. But, in seeking proof that no one can sign a message to the blockchain because we don't understand Bitcoin, we end in the same place; Wright spends many of his waking hours on the quest to prove he is Satoshi, but he provides no technical logic as to how he wrote ECDSA-based formulas to the hash process and permitted access only to the person who knows the resulting interpretation of the key. Again, I have no idea who Satoshi is, but the one point I will make, is that if the original whitepaper is what it claims to be, and I think all evidence points to that, Satoshi calls himself "we".

So, just to look at the evidence that Bitcoin does not use encryption, it is backed up by Wright, who claims to be Satoshi, and the google top search result that essentially states a simplified version of the same statement. In both cases, the actual form of encryption is specified, while offering no technical explanation why the specific encryption used, is not encryption. There is a good reason for Wright to say so, both in legal action and personal credit, but if one wants to validate what is happening in cryptography, I am tending to lean in the direction of cryptographers who code such things, and they agree you need to know the result that was encrypted, in order to make use of what was posted publicly.

Have I proven that Bitcoin uses encryption? I don't know. It sure seems like it to me. I believe I can provide enough data to suggest that Satoshi designed Bitcoin in such a way that there was a public facing side of data, and a cryptographically protected private side of that data that is hidden from the public, that requires a digital signature to make a transaction verified and usable. When speaking to how this is done, it mentions specifically using an ECDSA to protect what must be unlocked, in each hash. It is used to shorten the reading, writing, and storage time, to then eventually pass that to an ever briefer merkle tree for long term preservation, and all of this is made possible by a process described as elliptic data encryption. Thus, the algo's used to define the parameters of the private unlock code for every transaction, generate a completely unique key. Therefore, if you use a new key for each transaction, even if someone eventually cracked the code of an earlier public/private combo, it would not help them break the code on your new key. Why? Because the paremeters tell the cipher to change, based on a set of rules, every time a new key combo is used for a transaction. If it walks, quacks, and transacts like a duck, then I'm waiting for the best explanation as to why we are supposed to call it a rooster.

And on that note, a completely typed-out crypto Gordon Freeman, for now, out.