I'm beginning to learn about cryptocurrencies, and I'm having a lot of trouble because some terms are used in different contexts. I know that public keys are generated through a private key. So, are those public keys the addresses? And is it possible to generate more than one address per each private key in wallet? Why?
2 Answers
A Bitcoin address is a 160-bit hash of the public portion of a public/private ECDSA keypair.
a picture may make it easier to understand how an address is generated from a public key;
Image provided under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
Public key are not the addresses, A address is like an email address that funds can be sent to.
The public key is used by the wallet to make different addresses.
we can also say that The public address is a hashed version of the public key. Because the public key is made up of an extremely long string of numbers, it is compressed and shortened to form the public address
-
1That explains it clearly and concisely. The main point is that your public key is tightly coupled to an address, as it must be.– gcrJan 7, 2022 at 3:26