I think the important distinction to make about the cryptography differences between Monero vs Bitcoin is that Bitcoin uses pretty old, standard, well established cryptography, whereas zero knowledge proofs are a relatively new field that is only recently seeing real world use cases.
Monero is on the cutting edge of cryptography. People are weary of new things until some time has passed, to be confident that most of the kinks have been worked out.
Correct me if I'm wrong but Pedersen Commitments are over 30 years old. Basically the same age as the cryptography used in Bitcoin. It doesn't really seem that cutting edge. Maybe you could say that about the ZKPs used in Zcash or other projects.
I'm not sure what Pedersen Commitments are (and my quick search results didn't seem relevant to this conversation). But although the cryptography might be somewhat old already, the cryptography is only recently (in in ZCash and Monero) starting to get used outside of academia.
Sorry, I meant to say range proofs, and although they are pretty old, I see now that Moneros specific implementation is actually relatively new
Ah, was wondering as I was reading along what the chronology might be. That seems about right from what I remember
I think the specific implementation of Pedersen commitments is live since RingCt was introduced in January 2017
Will take your word for it as that’s deep in the weeds for me. I realize now I don’t know the chronology of a lot of the pieces. CTs were invented in 2014, or was that just the optimization by Blockstream and they date back further? I could look this stuff up, but if you happen to know please share. Ring sigs, range proofs, (anything I’m missing?) created quite a bit earlier?
pretty sure the idea of RingCT predates Bitcoin
i think it was Nick Szabo...?
ring signatures too, i think the idea is from before bitcoin.
range proofs,
which are the foundational maths,
are ancient.
mostly developed in the cryptography boom of the 80s and 90s I think.
Sounds right. I might have to dig a little just to satisfy curiosity on all these things
nice basic explanation here
Looks worth reading. 📝
worth noting the difference between a theoretical issue and and implementation one.
this is an *implementation concern.
ie, the maths aren't suspect, the concern is around how its applied.
as with Bitcoin, if you cant verify the implementation yourself,
what techniques can a person use to establish trust?
