
One of the most interesting functions of Bitcoin, and perhaps less known for those who start in the world cripto, is your crypto games ability to sign a message with your bitcoin address, and even securely encrypt and verify the authenticity of messages. A process that is possible thanks to the fact that Bitcoin uses asymmetric cryptography.
For example, it is possible for a person to sign a message with their bitcoin address, to show the world that the creator of a certain text is the person who owns the private key of a specific Bitcoin address. And it is not something exclusive to Bitcoin, many others cryptocurrencies, have this capacity, since their cryptographic foundations of public key / private are the same. All without exposing sensitive information.
But how can we do that from this function? Well, you will discover that in this interesting article, where we will show you how to perform this procedure.
Utility of signing messages using your Bitcoin address
However What is the real utility of signing messages using your Bitcoin address? As we discussed at the beginning, performing this procedure allows you to make public certain information that can be verified by anyone without major problems and with total security.
There are a wide variety of use cases where this feature can be useful. Here are some of those use cases:
Verification of origin of funds. For example, if we have decided to make a purchase using bitcoins from an address, but they ask us to verify that that address and funds are ours, then signing a message with that address solves the problem.
Be able to make payments to a specific address safely. For example, they send us a message, and we need to know that the message has not been intercepted and modified (ex: changing the address for payment). To do this, the full text would be signed (where the address to pay also appears) and we will add the digital signature. Thus, the recipient could take the message, the address and the signature and verify that everything is correct.
As a preliminary to the configuration of multi-sig or multi-signature purses. If a group of people have decided to create a multisig wallet, a preliminary step could be to verify that we indeed have control of the address that corresponds to us and for this we can sign a message using that address.
Be able to prove that you are the owner of an address. This is something that was asked of Craig Wright, because he shouts to the 4 winds that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, but he is not able to demonstrate that he has control over the directions attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. Simply signing a message with any of the addresses could prove it. One more reason why he is known as a scammer.
At this point, it is clear that it is quite a useful function and that it can be adapted to the needs of whoever is going to use it and, with a little creativity, find new and revolutionary scenarios.