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So Bitcoin uses an HD wallet and thanks to that it can store keys in a hierarchy. But how exactly and in what format are they stored? Is each private and public key stored as a separate file? Are they stored in textual or binary format? Does Bitcoin use a database to store them?

The only resource I found is the source code of Bitcoin Core but are there any books or sites where I can find explanations about this?

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  • I don't know if it really gives the detail you want but there is Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas M. Antonopoulos. This has chapters on bitcoin-core and on HD wallets. I suspect all the keys are in wallet.data and that a variant of Berkeley-DB key-value pair "database" format is used.
    – RedGrittyBrick
    Commented Jun 2, 2020 at 14:10

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No they are not stored, the child keys are calculated from the master when needed as they are deterministic, not random.

Here are some references:

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mastering-bitcoin/9781491902639/ch04.html#_deterministic_seeded_wallets

https://learnmeabitcoin.com/guide/hd-wallets

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