Wow it is rarely seen high-quality post on 連登
The entire infrastructure is based on the concept of Bitcoin that Nakamoto defined as a chain of digital signatures, it is possible to consider the coin as a token digitally signed by the owner that desires to transfer the currency. To be more accurate each user transfer the coin to other entity in the network digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner, the signature is then added to the end of the token.
The payee is the only one that could verify the previous transaction using its private key because the coin has been signed using its public key, this allow it to verify the chain of ownership. The described process has solved the problem of authentication of the payment and not repudiation, but we are still not able to avoid the duplication of the transaction, in practice the circuit must avoid that the same coin could be used in multiple transactions.
The model is enriched by another actor, entrusted with the task of verifying that each coin is spent only once, this central authority is named “mint”. To discharge its task, after each transaction the mint acquires the coin used to issue a new coin, in this way only the coins distributed directly from the mint are valid and only for them there is the assurance that have not already been spent.
Great … the model proposed is able to trust the entities involved in the transaction and to control the effective circulation of the currency … but there is still another factor not yet considers … the time! When does a transaction occurred?