Does The NSA Control Bitcoin (SHA-256)?

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In this video, I discuss the creation of SHA-256, how it works, and whether it can be used by the NSA to control Bitcoin.

SHA-256, as used in Bitcoin's proof of work, provides a concrete way of proving that a Bitcoin miner "has done the work." There are no shortcuts: a Bitcoin miner must burn electricity and keep guessing numbers until he gets an output with the correct number of zeroes at the beginning.

SHA-256 is perfect for this, since once you know the input, you can easily check it to see if the hashing algorithm spits out the correct hash. But it is difficult to come up with that input in the first place. This asymmetry lies at the heart of Bitcoin's security proposal.

SHA-256 is not a secret or a black box. Further, there is no way that the NSA can use it to control or attack Bitcoin.

Not investment advice! Consult a financial advisor.

National Security Agency (NSA):

Edward Snowden:

SHA-2:

Hexadecimal:

Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper:

SHA-256 tool:

Hex to binary converter:

My favorite Bitcoin dashboard:

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#Bitcoin
#NSA
#SHA256

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[Bitcoin_University]

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[tabularasa]

This is the only channel that i watch every single video of. No BS music, animation or empty talk. Just direct clean info from an expert.

Keep it up !!

[andreharvey]

Matt has got to be the most under appreciated master in the crypto space. There’s less than a handful of podcasters that I follow for BTC/industry info/developments. Matt is in my No. 1 slot

[ronaldmckean]

This was the most complete explanation of SHA I’ve seen. I like the fact that there’s no animation or ominous music. You actually show code conversion. I also appreciate that you said to watch the free videos first before stepping up. Yeah, this is the real thing..

[theGADGETSplaylist]

as negative as I am about Bitcoin, I really do like your video
your point about NSA SHA-256 development does not translate into Bitcoin control is well made
and your explanation of what miners are trying to solve is THE VERY BEST!
BIG thumbs up:)

[Yusuf-vpym]

Another point if you want 19 zeros in hexadecimal then you must have at least 19*4 = 76 zeros in binary, which means probability is 1/(2^76) which is abou 1 out of trillion squared. Approximately = 1 / 10^24

[civicparadox]

9:00 That hash is in hex! In binary, that number starts with 79 zeroes.

[abrahamnorthhampton]

Matthew, this is the best short explanation of how the Bitcoin cryptographic algorithm works. Many thanks!

[SAL-fsmr]

This key breakthrough is that the data from proof of work solutions speaks for itself, no trusted authority is needed to trust at all. Proof of stake systems lack this, you have to have some subjective input from a central authority to ensure you are on the correct chain, this weakness in proof of stake is called "weak subjectivity".

[noctis]

The number of possible combos for a number is (base)^(length) so in hex at 9:39 it should be 1/16^19 1.32*10^(-23)

[stuffhappens]

I hardly ever buy Papa John’s pizza. But I bought a Papa John’s pizza today without realizing it’s the anniversary of the first Bitcoin transaction for Papa John’s pizzas. Whoa. The universe is aligning.

[billmoline]

One fine Saturday about 40 years ago I smoked one quintillion hashes and oddly enough my mind felt the same way as it does right now after watching your video. Seriously though, thank you for all your effort to put out this content and educate the crypto community. Love it!

[tarik_diamane]

I'm a muslim, and I liked the Algebra reference/analogy as a gift to the world. Salam. ✌

[kevindavis]

Never could understand how mining worked. Great simplified explanation. Thanks!

[castiglione]

That is one aspect of it. But the FUDers say that SHA-256 has a backdoor (and it's impossible to disprove a possible flaw) so the NSA can simply access your private keys through that backdoor.

[mukymuk]

If SHA256 ever gets "reversed", that is, someone (or the NSA) figures out out to obtain an input from an output, yes, bitcoin would break--but so would the world. SHA256 is used everywhere for all kinds of critical (often financial) systems. So even if it is possible to reverse, doing so would almost instantly bring down the global financial system and other critical infrastructure. The price of Bitcoin would be the least of our worries.

[blank]

This was a great video. I think some of the errors you made were pointed out. I think it would be great if you showed an actually bitcoin miner input including all the proper data(nonce, time stamp, previous block hash, etc.) and you could use that to emphasize how lazy journalists just say bitcoin mining is solving complex mathematical problems. This isn’t a complex mathematical problem it’s a trial and error process to generate a specific output from the sha-256 hashing function that is not backwards solvable.

[pdempsey]

Hats off to you for not doing a 20 second video saying "this YouTube commenter is being stupid." I'm not sure I would have been as mature.

[Zaptosis]

I'm pretty sure the NSA didn't create the algorithm chosen for SHA, it was a contest where independent security researchers could present hashing algorithms & the NSA just picked the winner. So it would have been independently created.

[Death-gate]

Decimal is base-10. Hexadecimal is base-16. Binary is base-2.