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Bitcoin secures ownership and spending rights through cryptography. From its earliest days, that security has relied on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). Every time you send bitcoin, you’re proving—cryptographically—that you control the private key associated with those coins.
Schnorr signatures introduce an alternative signature scheme that refines how Bitcoin handles security, privacy, and scalability. They don’t alter Bitcoin’s core principles or monetary rules, but they unlock subtle, powerful improvements that ripple across the entire ecosystem.
Digital Signatures, Revisited
At a high level, digital signatures serve the same purpose as handwritten signatures—but with far stronger guarantees.
A digital signature allows you to prove that a specific message was created by someone holding a particular private key, without ever revealing that key.
In Bitcoin, the process works like this:
A private key is generated as a large random number and must remain secret.
From it, a public key is mathematically derived using the secp256k1 elliptic curve.
Your Bitcoin address or public key can be shared openly, but deriving the private key from it is computationally infeasible.
When you create a Bitcoin transaction, you are effectively signing a message that authorizes the movement of specific coins. Every node in the network independently verifies that signature using the public key.
If the signature is valid, the transaction is accepted.
If not, it is rejected outright.
This mechanism is the foundation of Bitcoin’s trustless design.
What Are Schnorr Signatures?
Schnorr signatures are a digital signature scheme that functions similarly to ECDSA but with cleaner and more elegant mathematical properties. Interestingly, the Schnorr scheme actually predates ECDSA—it was proposed decades ago by cryptographer Claus P. Schnorr.
So why didn’t Bitcoin use Schnorr signatures from day one?
The primary reason was legal uncertainty. Schnorr signatures were covered by patents that only expired in early 2008, just months before the Bitcoin whitepaper was released. At that time, ECDSA was already standardized, open, and widely deployed, making it the safer choice for a brand-new, high-stakes monetary system.
Why Schnorr Signatures Are an Upgrade
One of Schnorr’s biggest advantages is simplicity.
Their mathematical structure is easier to analyze and prove secure compared to ECDSA. That alone is valuable—but the real breakthrough lies in a property known as linearity.
Linearity Explained
Linearity allows multiple Schnorr signatures to be combined into a single signature. This capability unlocks major improvements for Bitcoin, especially in how it handles multisignature transactions.
Multisignature Transactions, Done Better
Bitcoin already supports multisignature (multisig) wallets, where multiple parties must approve a transaction before funds can be spent. While powerful, the current ECDSA-based approach has clear drawbacks:
All public keys and signatures are revealed on-chain
Transaction size increases significantly
Observers can easily identify multisig usage
Fees are higher due to larger data requirements
From both a privacy and scalability perspective, this is suboptimal.
How Schnorr Fixes This
With signature aggregation, Schnorr allows multiple participants to merge their individual signatures into one compact signature—the same size as a normal single-signature transaction.
On-chain, a multisig spend can look indistinguishable from a regular transaction.
This results in:
Improved privacy – observers can’t tell how many signers were involved
Lower fees – less data stored on the blockchain
Better scalability – more transactions fit into each block
In short: multisig becomes cleaner, cheaper, and more private.
Beyond Multisig: A Foundation for New Features
Schnorr signatures don’t just improve existing features—they act as a foundational building block for future Bitcoin innovation.
They make it easier to design and implement advanced systems such as:
Atomic swaps, which require flexible and secure signature logic
The Lightning Network, where efficient and private cryptographic constructions are essential
Smart contract-like spending conditions, without bloating the blockchain
Most importantly, Schnorr signatures enabled Taproot, a major Bitcoin upgrade that allows complex spending conditions to remain hidden unless they are actually used. This keeps on-chain data minimal while dramatically improving privacy.
When Did Schnorr Arrive in Bitcoin?
For many years, Schnorr signatures were discussed as a potential future upgrade with no fixed timeline. As with all Bitcoin changes, adoption required:
Extensive peer review
Broad community agreement
A conservative, security-first rollout
Key contributors such as Pieter Wuille, Jonas Nick, and Tim Ruffing helped formalize Schnorr’s integration through Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs). Research and development from Blockstream, including the MuSig signature aggregation scheme, demonstrated that Schnorr could be implemented safely in practice.
Ultimately, Schnorr signatures were introduced to Bitcoin as part of the Taproot upgrade, activated via a soft fork—meaning it enhanced Bitcoin without splitting the network.
Final Thoughts
Schnorr signatures may be invisible to most everyday Bitcoin users, but their impact is profound.
They quietly:
Improve privacy
Reduce transaction sizes
Lower fees
Enable more expressive and efficient smart contract designs
More importantly, Schnorr signatures prepare Bitcoin for the future. By simplifying its cryptographic foundations, they empower developers to build more advanced, private, and scalable systems—without compromising Bitcoin’s core security model.
In that sense, Schnorr signatures aren’t just a technical upgrade.
They are a long-term investment in Bitcoin’s evolution.$BTC
#Bitcoin #BTC #Cryptography #SchnorrSignatures #LightningNetwork

ここ数ヶ月、世界の暗号市場はビットコインETFの流入と流出に固執しており、それを価格動向の究極の脈動として扱っています。ETFの保有がわずかに上昇するたびに強気の興奮が引き起こされ、流出があると弱気の恐れが点火されます。

しかし、ここにウォール街があなたに言わない真実があります — ビットコインの歴史の中で最も爆発的な急騰は、金融商品だけによって引き起こされることは稀です。むしろ、最大で持続可能なラリーは、ビットコインの使用方法、採用、そして世界経済への統合を変える技術的ブレークスルーから来ることが多いのです。

ライトニングネットワークと「テセウスの船」の比較に関する記事で、構成要素が置き換えられるとネットワークの本質が変わるのかという疑問を提起しています。

ライトニングネットワークの主要コンポーネント

基本的に、#lightningnetwork はユーザーがビットコインをマルチシグアドレスにロックし、オフチェーンでトランザクション残高を更新する支払いチャネルのネットワークです。これはビットコインのスケーラビリティを向上させるための重要な解決策です。

エルサルバドルでのPlan ₿フォーラム中、テザーはUSDTをビットコインのコアレイヤーおよびライトニングネットワークと統合するという画期的な発表をしました。この動きは、暗号通貨の世界的な採用を加速させると期待されており、専門家はビットコインエコシステムの大幅な拡大を予測しています。
この統合からUSDTはどのように利益を得るのでしょうか？ 🌍
このマイルストーンを実現するために、テザーは次のように設計されたTaproot Assetsプロトコルを活用します：
トランザクション速度を向上させる ⏩
分散化を損なうことなくスケーラビリティを向上させる 🔒

現在の状況、課題、未来
ライトニングネットワークとその重要性
ライトニングネットワーク（LN）は、その創設以来、ビットコインエコシステムにおける最も重要な革新の一つを表しています。第二層プロトコル（Layer-2）として、ビットコインが直面する主なスケーラビリティの課題、すなわち限られた速度、混雑時の高い手数料、制限された容量（メインチェーンでの約7トランザクション/秒）に対処するために設計されました。
2015年にジョセフ・プーンとサディウス・ドライジャによって初めて概念化されたライトニングネットワークは、2018年にベータ版がリリースされ、それ以来、急速な成長を遂げ、2025年には公共チャンネルでの容量がわずか20 BTCから3,996 BTC以上に増加しました。この技術は、手数料が最小限（約1サトシまたは$0.0003）で、主にビットコインのメインチェーンの外で操作することにより、より高いプライバシーを提供し、瞬時のトランザクションを可能にします。