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How do sites like blockchain.info and bitaddress.org generate private keys by simply hashing a string? (the passphrase?)

In this wiki article, https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_version_1_Bitcoin_addresses Step "0" starts with an ECDSA key pair already generated.

Does this mean that any 256-bit value can be a valid ECDSA private key? So wherever I am in the world, I can always just SHA256(passphrase) and get my private key?

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Any 256-bit value can be a valid secp256k1 ECDSA private key. Strictly speaking, there's an upper limit that's slightly lower than 2^256, but you can just wrap them around.

So yes, you can just use SHA256(passphrase) to generate a private key.

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  • Techies often forget to normalize the private seed when making brain wallets, mentioned above. This is typically not a show stopper for secp256k1, but is very big issue when ed25519 is used. Concerning secp256k1, try a using a private key greater than FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFEBAAEDCE6AF48A03BBFD25E8CD0364140. Key normalization is required.
    – skaht
    Feb 24, 2019 at 4:23
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We made a much improved version of brainwallet that uses scrypt key-stretching to protect your secret key. See it here: https://keybase.io/warp. There's currently an unbroken 20BTC challenge for an 8-letter passphrase.

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  • After losing bitcoins in bitaddress.org's brain wallet, I am glad to see someone came up with something a little more substantial. The fact that an 8 character pass still hasn't been cracked is impressive.
    – RobKohr
    Jan 13, 2014 at 15:32

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