If I want to watch a public address, I need the hex string for that address, because the importpubkey command only takes a hex input. How can I convert a base 58 address to a hex string using the bitcoin core?
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Possible duplicate of How can I convert a SHA256 hash into a Bitcoin base58 private key? – Hannah Vernon Nov 20 '17 at 21:50
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I realize the above link does the conversion the other way; however it should help you get started. – Hannah Vernon Nov 20 '17 at 21:51
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1@MaxVernon Uh, what??? This has nothing to do with private keys. Also, the conversion you cited is going the wrong way. That does not get me started. I want to know how to convert a base 58 pub key to a hex pub key USING THE CORE CLIENT. – Tyler Durden Nov 20 '17 at 21:56
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You cannot generate public key from a bitcoin address. From bitcoin address, all you can get is the hash160. Following reference, this can be done through base58 decoding, going from Step 9 -> Step 8. So you get same output as from Step 4 along with checksum at the end.
Basically you have two alternatives:
- If you have the private key, generate the public key and use
importpubkey - Use
importaddress
You might want to use the importaddress RPC method (I'm not even aware of an importpubkey method). The importaddress method accepts the base58 address string you have. I recently asked a slightly-related question and ended up answering it myself here: How to make ImportMulti function like ImportAddress for watch-only addresses placed into Accounts?
