Roll your own crypto

Fri, Sep 15, 2023, 01:15 PM · 1:20:13

Elliptic curve cryptography underpins the trillion dollar economy of cryptocurrencies. But it's often seen as some sort of sorcery, meant only for experts. While it's true that cryptography is a minefield, and therefore you should _never roll your own crypto_, it's still a useful method to build an understanding of cryptocurrencies from first principles. In this workshop, we'll cover basic algebra necessary to get a theoretical understanding of elliptic curves, and learn how they are used for signing and verifying transactions. We'll then put this theory to practice by rolling our own toy implementation of the elliptic curve used in Ethereum and Bitcoin.