SHA-256 Cryptanalytic Experiments

#1

Sharing what I saw posted elsewhere. By Noctarion, an independent cryptography researcher.

I ran 60 cryptanalysis experiments on SHA-256. Here’s what I found.

TL;DR
SHA-256 cannot be broken. No shortcut for mining exists. But proving that produced 7 novel findings.

The 7 novel findings:

  1. Double-SHA-256 is NOT two independent hashes (9.56σ)
  2. |HW(a)-16| → leading zeros: 20.48σ
  3. Round 8 is the “insulator” — 17× drop
  4. Nonce identity preserved (26.25σ) — but useless
  5. Mixing: 85% linear + 15% nonlinear
  6. First algebraic mining impossibility proof via Z3
  7. Groebner basis: 2^71 worse than brute force

All 19 Frameworks — 0 Exploitable Signals

Sources:

Paper link (awaiting review, should show later):

Bitcoin SE post: