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Signing a Bitcoin Transaction with Lamport Signatures (no changes needed)

Signing a Bitcoin Transaction with Lamport Signatures (no changes needed)

Original Postby David A. Harding

Posted on: May 6, 2024 18:56 UTC

The recent correspondence between Andrew Poelstra and various parties including Matthew Zipkin, Ethan Heilman, and the Bitcoin Development Mailing List highlights some technical specifics regarding tapscript, a component in the Bitcoin protocol.

Poelstra's inquiry sheds light on the nature of signatures within tapscript, pointing out that unlike ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) signatures which can vary in size, tapscript signatures maintain a consistent size. Specifically, all signatures in tapscript are exactly 64 bytes, with the potential addition of an optional sighash byte. This detail underlines a fundamental difference between the signature mechanisms employed within different parts of the Bitcoin system, emphasizing the streamlined nature of tapscript's approach to handling cryptographic signatures.