Each blocked is hashed twice. Why isn't one application of SHA256 enough?
asked Jul 30, 2012 at 20:44
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2 Answers
From Zooko's answer provided in Crypto StackExchange:
SHA-256(SHA-256(x)) was proposed by Ferguson and Schneier in their excellent book "Practical Cryptography" (later updated by Ferguson, Schneier, and Kohno and renamed "Cryptography Engineering") as a way to make SHA-256 invulnerable to "length-extension" attack. They called it "SHA-256d".
answered Jul 30, 2012 at 21:52
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Length extension attacks are impossible in Bitcoin because length extension attacks only apply where the hashed data is secret. This answer is incorrect. Feb 22, 2022 at 10:40
My conjecture is the double hashing everywhere was a red-herring to make us think Satoshi was sloppy, lame and take our focus away from a posited valid use case for the RIPEMD160(SHA256).
My lengthy and elaborate rationale is in my answer on the related question.
