user9946: I haven't been able to find a whitepaper or technical spec detailing the bitcoin algorithms and protocols. Google is flooded with too much hand-wavy nonsense. Can someone point me in the right direction?

user8848: The cryptographic primitives used in Bitcoin are SHA-256 and ECDSA.
For ECDSA: http://www.secg.org/collateral/sec2_final.pdf
For SHA-256: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips180-4/fips-180-4.pdf

user9948: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
by: Satoshi Nakamoto
That would be a good place to start.

9946: <p>I haven't been able to find a whitepaper or technical spec detailing the bitcoin algorithms and protocols. Google is flooded with too much hand-wavy nonsense. Can someone point me in the right direction?</p>
 8848: <p>The cryptographic primitives used in Bitcoin are SHA-256 and ECDSA.</p>

<p>For ECDSA: <a href="http://www.secg.org/collateral/sec2_final.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.secg.org/collateral/sec2_final.pdf</a></p>

<p>For SHA-256: <a href="http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips180-4/fips-180-4.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips180-4/fips-180-4.pdf</a></p>
 9948: <p><a href="http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf" rel="nofollow">Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System</a></p>

<p>by: Satoshi Nakamoto</p>

<p>That would be a good place to start.</p>
