LibraryPrivacy2018Design paperCorpus record
Confidential Assets
Range proofs. Andrew Poelstra, Adam Back, Mark Friedenbach, Gregory Maxwell and Pieter Wuille.
Confidential assets put an asset tag beside a Pedersen commitment so a transaction can balance in several assets without publishing which output is which asset or how much.
A reading of the public document. Not a copy of it, and not a claim about a later network that reused the name.
A privacy coin that hides the amount and still prints the asset name has done half of this design.
- Evidence
- Primary paper
- Re-measured
- No
- Assumptions
- 3
- Records linked
- 2
Code
Source, repository, and what is actually hosted
- Blockstream Bitcoin 2017 paperhttps://blockstream.com/bitcoin17-final41.pdf
- The source URL is not a GitHub repository. No code remote is invented.
- Full text is not mirrored. Public availability is not a licence to copy the file onto this site.
- Add to a reading list
01 Claim ledger
What the paper is allowed to say
Each row is a sentence already in the study. The status is the same on every row: a model claim, not a live measurement.
Claim 01 · Paper model
The defect
Confidential transactions hide amounts. They do not, by themselves, say what asset moved.
Claim 02 · Paper model
The rule
Confidential assets put an asset tag beside a Pedersen commitment so a transaction can balance in several assets without publishing which output is which asset or how much.
Claim 03 · Paper model
How it is put together
A commitment binds an amount and blinds it. An asset tag is a separate generator. The balance equation has to hold per asset, in the group, without opening the commitments.
Claim 04 · Paper model
Where the claim stops
The paper is not deployed bitcoin.
02 Three cuts
Observation, model, falsifier
A desk does not stop at the summary. Each claim is cut three ways, using only this study's own assumptions and checks. Nothing here is a new figure.
01 The defect
Observation
What the study says
Confidential transactions hide amounts. They do not, by themselves, say what asset moved.
Model
What has to hold
Asset tags and amount commitments solve different leaks.
Falsifier
What would retire it
Does the balance equation hide the asset or only the amount?
02 The rule
Observation
What the study says
Confidential assets put an asset tag beside a Pedersen commitment so a transaction can balance in several assets without publishing which output is which asset or how much.
Model
What has to hold
It does not hide the transaction graph.
Falsifier
What would retire it
Does the balance equation hide the asset or only the amount?
03 How it is put together
Observation
What the study says
A commitment binds an amount and blinds it. An asset tag is a separate generator. The balance equation has to hold per asset, in the group, without opening the commitments.
Model
What has to hold
Asset tags and amount commitments solve different leaks.
Falsifier
What would retire it
Does the balance equation hide the asset or only the amount?
04 Where the claim stops
03 Sequence
One action, as an operating tape
- 01Spend outputs by revealing the blinding factors only to the people who must see them.
- 02The network checks the homomorphic sum is zero.
- 03A range proof stops a negative amount from creating value.
- 04Does the balance equation hide the asset or only the amount?
04 Load-bearing
The argument, and where a pitch drops it
Why it is still on the desk
The cut
A privacy coin that hides the amount and still prints the asset name has done half of this design.
Why it carries weight
If this cut is skipped, the paper's name is being used without the mechanism that makes the name mean anything.
Where it is dropped
Asset tags and amount commitments solve different leaks.
After the text
The cut
Liquid and later confidential-asset chains cite this construction. Bitcoin mainnet did not adopt it.
Why it carries weight
If this cut is skipped, the paper's name is being used without the mechanism that makes the name mean anything.
Where it is dropped
The paper is not deployed bitcoin.
05 Register
What has to be true
Model · Not re-measured
The paper is not deployed bitcoin.
Model · Not re-measured
It does not hide the transaction graph.
Model · Not re-measured
Asset tags and amount commitments solve different leaks.
06 Divergence
What happened after the paper
Liquid and later confidential-asset chains cite this construction. Bitcoin mainnet did not adopt it.
A later client, parameter set, or reward formula is a different object. Cite this paper for the mechanism. Cite a primary release for the network. This desk has not re-run the proof.
07 Pre-mortem
What to check before you use the idea
- 0 of 3 marked on this browser. A mark is a reading note, not a pass, a rating, or a recommendation.
08 Anatomy
The paper, in the order a builder needs
The problem it names
Confidential transactions hide amounts. They do not, by themselves, say what asset moved.
What the design proposes
- A commitment binds an amount and blinds it.
- An asset tag is a separate generator.
- The balance equation has to hold per asset, in the group, without opening the commitments.
How the mechanism is specified
- Spend outputs by revealing the blinding factors only to the people who must see them.
- The network checks the homomorphic sum is zero.
- A range proof stops a negative amount from creating value.
What this page does not treat as proven
- The paper is not deployed bitcoin.
- It does not hide the transaction graph.
- Asset tags and amount commitments solve different leaks.
Why the desk still reads it
A privacy coin that hides the amount and still prints the asset name has done half of this design.
09 Lexicon
Terms, opened into the record
- Asset tag
- A group element that marks which asset a commitment is about.
- Pedersen commitment
- A commitment that adds, so amounts can be checked without being shown.
10 Repository
Every linked record on this page
Underlined words open a page that already exists: a concept, a protocol profile, a failure record, or another paper. If a word is not underlined, this desk does not have a record for it.
Protocols
This is Blockchain Lab's reading of a public design paper. It is not the paper, not a copy of it, and not an offer of tokens, equity, custody or a partnership. Later network behaviour can diverge from the text. Nothing here is investment, legal or technical advice.
Research status: Design paper. Last reviewed: 1 October 2026. This is a reading of a public paper, not investment, legal or security advice.