OK gang, RC provides the clues, therefore we gotta dig, and in this case I can use some additional sparkplugs (that’s you!). Dr Jacques is in the books, he’s grabbing his lapel nametag, conveniently located adjacent to his pectoral region, we all thought “ha ha, that’s Jake!” and moved along. But Jacques Tits turns out to be quite interesting. He’s a doctor of advanced mathematics, from Belgium, spent his life in France, lots of crazy advanced math in his wikipedia page- even has various theories and constructions named for him. Died recently, on 5 December 2021. So- following links (below), we go to Group Theory, down to Public-Key Cryptography (interesting…) and scroll down to see “Examples of protocols using asymmetric key algorithms include: Bitcoin.”
Maybe this nothing burger deserves further study? Anyone care to help dig while we wait for some news??
Dave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Tits -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography -> “Examples of protocols using asymmetric key algorithms include: Bitcoin” (cross-posted w PPshow for visibility)
Bitcoin & Litecoin were the only players in 2012, but Bitcoin wasn’t in the general public’s vernacular yet. My point was that someone (RC et al) likely didn’t edit the PKC wikipedia page to highlight Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s inclusion in that page’s 2012 edit, and no others, was an artifact of its time, and no additional crypto tokens/coins/chains were added (and removed) since, reinforcing the case against someone highlighting bitcoin as a clue to trace back to Jacques Tits.