On Friday, a patent describing a technology for accelerating cryptographic operations in elliptical curves known as GLV endomorphism expired. This will enable its activation in Bitcoin Core to increase the speed and efficiency of verification of bitcoin signatures.
The possibility of using GLV endomorphism was studied by Hal Finney, the first to receive a bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto. In a post on Bitcointalk dated February 8, 2011, Finney wrote that he started experimenting with the technology after he studied the work of the patent authors. The initial results were promising - verification speed increased by 25%.
Subsequently, support for the technology was added to the Bitcoin Core client, but it could not be activated due to a patent registered in December 1999.
"Its implementation was one of the primary motivations for the libsecp256k1 library, which has since replaced all cryptographic applications of OpenSSL in Bitcoin Core," said Blockstream Research Director Andrew Poelstra. - But it was disabled by default to avoid patent issues, and was never included in Bitcoin Core.
The expiration of the patent allows developers to enable GLV endomorphism in the next release of Bitcoin Core. The feature was actively tested during the development of the libsecp256k1 library, making it suitable for immediate commissioning. Once activated, the node owners will be able to count on a reduction in resource consumption.
"This performance improvement first attracted attention for the bitcoin of Hal Finney. While Hal is no longer with us, his contribution is still being felt," said Blockstream CEO Edam Back.