Cryptography and cryptocurrencies

Cryptography use by cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies use cryptography for several tasks, including:

• signing transactions using a private key

• verifying ownership of an amount to be spent using a public key

• summarising a transaction into a hash

• summaring all transactions in a block into a hash

• summarising a block into a hash

• defining criteria for a block hash to satisfy for a block to be acceptable