Hi guys, I am currently following my first course here and I absolutely love it and want to follow every single course in this academy!!
I am currently following the Bitcoin 101 course and I am in the hash functions group of lectures and I saw on the website of hash functions that Ivan was on a hash function with 384 bits. Do we know why Satoshi decided to use SHA 256 instead of 384 which would make it even more difficult and impossible to find the unique ID of each input?
Thank you!
SHA-256 is currently just as secure as SHA-384 and SHA-512 because we can not produce a collision attack in any of them. So, to put it simply, it would be pointless.
One main consideration is the size of the hashing algorithm, SHA-256 is generally faster and more lightweight than its counterparts.
More bits equals more data, processing power, and memory usage, without any major benefits. SHA-256 seems to be the sweet spot for security while being lightweight enough to not bog down the network.
Theoretically, Yes, SHA-256 is less secure than SHA-384 and SHA-512, but in reality, none of them can be exploited with today’s technology.
Update: Afterthoughts
The main benefits of using something like SHA-512 over SHA-256 is it collision resistance. One day Bitcoin may evolve to use SHA-512 out of necessity.