Compressed pubkeys #649

pull sipa wants to merge 3 commits into bitcoin:master from sipa:comprpubkey changing 8 files +228 −53

sipa commented at 1:54 AM on November 21, 2011: member

This patch enables compressed pubkeys when -compressedpubkeys is passed. These are 33 bytes instead of 65, and require only marginally more CPU power when verifying. Compressed pubkeys have a different corresponding address, so it is determined at generation. When -compressedpubkeys is given, all newly generated addresses will use a compressed key, while older/other addresses keep using normal keys. Unpatched clients will relay and verify these transactions.

Tested on testnet with both normal and encrypted wallets, using compressed and non-compressed keys.

Initial idea and tests for this patch were done by roconnor.
sipa commented at 11:33 AM on November 21, 2011: member

Regarding patent issues, read this: http://cr.yp.to/patents/us/6141420.html
gavinandresen commented at 1:42 AM on November 24, 2011: contributor

Spiffy! Could you create unit tests and a test plan? For example, if I want to test use of compressed and uncompressed keys... I would run with/without the -compressedpubkeys option, but do I need to use up old uncompressed keypool keys before I get compressed keys?
sipa commented at 1:42 PM on November 24, 2011: member

For testing, you probably want to be able to mix compressed and uncompressed keys. For production use, you probably want to just switch once and for all, so -compressedpubkeys would better flush all non-compressed keys in the keypool.
luke-jr commented at 3:18 PM on December 23, 2011: member

This needs rebasing.
sipa commented at 3:33 PM on December 23, 2011: member

@luke-jr done
gavinandresen commented at 9:39 PM on December 23, 2011: contributor

I think we should just make compressed keys the default; I don't see any reason to continue supporting/generating/etc the larger uncompressed keys.
sipa commented at 2:12 PM on December 25, 2011: member

Ok, compressed pubkeys are now enabled by default in the pull request (the key pool isn't flushed, though)

I'll add some unit tests soon.

Compressed pubkeys

This patch enabled compressed pubkeys when -compressedpubkeys is passed.
These are 33 bytes instead of 65, and require only marginally more CPU
power when verifying. Compressed pubkeys have a different corresponding
address, so it is determined at generation. When -compressedpubkeys is
given, all newly generated addresses will use a compressed key, while
older/other addresses keep using normal keys. Unpatched clients will
relay and verify these transactions.

11529c6e4f

Compact signatures with compressed pubkeys d4d9c734c3

Unit tests for EC key routines

This tests:
* creation of keys from base58-encoded strings
* extracting public keys and addresses
* compressed public keys
* compact signatures and key recovery

b3974ec9d4

sipa referenced this in commit afcf6f974f on Jan 10, 2012
sipa merged this on Jan 10, 2012
sipa closed this on Jan 10, 2012
coblee referenced this in commit 9f6a4eb6bd on Jul 17, 2012
ptschip referenced this in commit ecad7c3f50 on Jun 7, 2017
dexX7 referenced this in commit 3b1f30e488 on Jul 16, 2018
kallewoof referenced this in commit 335be0191b on Oct 4, 2019
KolbyML referenced this in commit bc86927231 on Sep 4, 2020
rajarshimaitra referenced this in commit fc5488e24f on Aug 5, 2021
DrahtBot locked this on Sep 8, 2021

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sipa

gavinandresen

luke-jr

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