user2306: Bitcoin Core is eventually going to replace OpenSSL with libsecp256k1 for all ECDSA operations. As I understand it, this is motivated by wanting consensus-critical rules to not depend on OpenSSL.
Is libsecp256k1 signature verification also faster than OpenSSL? I've heard conflicting information about that.

user5292: Yes it's a lot faster. For example from one of the core developers:
reddit - Pieter Wuille / 2015-02-19 18:13

Just did a benchmark on libsecp256k1's current master, without GMP,
  without hand-written assembly, and it's around 3.6x faster than
  OpenSSL on my machine (64-bit code, i7 cpu). When the assembly is
  compiled in (which does not require any extra dependencies anymore),
  it's 4.9 times faster.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2weymr/experiment_bitcoin_core_0100_initial_sync_time/coqghm2
This talks about signature verification, which is currently the bottleneck when catching up to the blockchain.

2306: <p>Bitcoin Core is eventually going to replace OpenSSL with libsecp256k1 for all ECDSA operations. As I understand it, this is motivated by wanting consensus-critical rules to not depend on OpenSSL.</p>

<p>Is libsecp256k1 signature verification also faster than OpenSSL? I've heard conflicting information about that.</p>
 5292: <p>Yes it's a lot faster. For example from one of the core developers:</p>

<p>reddit - Pieter Wuille / 2015-02-19 18:13</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Just did a benchmark on libsecp256k1's current master, without GMP,
  without hand-written assembly, and it's around 3.6x faster than
  OpenSSL on my machine (64-bit code, i7 cpu). When the assembly is
  compiled in (which does not require any extra dependencies anymore),
  it's 4.9 times faster.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2weymr/experiment_bitcoin_core_0100_initial_sync_time/coqghm2">http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2weymr/experiment_bitcoin_core_0100_initial_sync_time/coqghm2</a></p>

<p>This talks about signature verification, which is currently the bottleneck when catching up to the blockchain.</p>
