30
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to convert a taproot address into a native segwit address?
I am afraid the sent coins are irrevocably burned.
The reason is that P2TR addresses encode a (tweaked) public key, while P2WSH addresses encode a script hash. If someone would take a P2TR address so ...
- 99.2k
26
votes
Accepted
Is a bitcoin address collision possible if generating 90 million addresses every 4 hours?
Because of the Birthday paradox, you only need 280 addresses (despite there existing 2160 different address combinations) before a collision becomes probable.
Thankfully, that is still an enormous ...
- 99.2k
23
votes
How can I manually (on paper) calculate a Bitcoin public key from a private key?
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about this and can provide a fairly comprehensive answer about the state of the art. But unfortunately the TL;DR is that we don't know how to do this (yet) in ...
- 686
22
votes
Accepted
Is any 256-bit combination a Bitcoin private key?
A secp256k1 private key is an integer between 1 and 115792089237316195423570985008687907852837564279074904382605163141518161494336, inclusive. The latter can be written as 2256 - ...
- 99.2k
21
votes
Accepted
How are different addresses generated from the same private key?
Private and public key correspond to a point on the secp256k1 curve. They have a one-to-one relationship.
The address is derived from the public key by performing a ripemd160 hash after a sha256 hash ...
- 71.7k
15
votes
Accepted
Why is Bitcoin address encoded in base58?
Why base-58 instead of standard base-64 encoding?
Don't want 0OIl characters that look the same in some fonts and
could be used to create visually identical looking account numbers.
A string with ...
- 3,639
10
votes
How are different addresses generated from the same private key?
With Bitcoin, a single private key will have associated compressed and uncompressed private/public key pairs. Uncompressed public key addresses are larger in size than newer compressed public ...
- 3,017
10
votes
Accepted
Which wallet libraries officially intend to use Bech32 addresses, and will the addresses generated by them be compatible?
Bech32 is an address format that was only recently proposed. While its design had input from multiple wallet authors, it is way too early to say anything about adoption.
It is important to realize ...
- 99.2k
10
votes
Accepted
Replacing ECDSA (SECP256k1) with Schnorr signatures
Schnorr will replace ECDSA, the signing algorithm, but both still use the same elliptic curve and thus the same public and private keys, etc.
Regardless, compatibility with ECDSA must be kept too ...
- 11.7k
10
votes
Accepted
Why do compressed and uncompressed public keys have to produce different addresses?
My question is: Why cant you just uncompress the compressed public key (effectively making it an uncompressed public key) and then derive the address. That way even if you use the compressed key, ...
- 99.2k
9
votes
How are different addresses generated from the same private key?
Whenever you are attempting to explain Bitcoin to anyone, it makes a lot of sense to simply state that the derivation private key > public key > address is deterministic. However, if you are ...
- 1,524
9
votes
Accepted
Is the SHA256 value in the bitcoin address wiki accurate?
The problem is that you're treating the pubkey as string data. What you need to do is treat it as raw binary hexadecimal. If you use fileformat.info and calculate it using Binary Hash hex bytes you do ...
- 617
9
votes
Accepted
How to sweep a segwit bech32 private key?
Use Electrum 3.1.1 and prepend "p2wpkh:" to the private key before importing or sweeping it. For example:
p2wpkh:5Kkzs8XrJNAmf9VQDFeGBfaRvSByAvPK6DbDXw5BVqswWaXSG2Y
- 2,659
8
votes
Accepted
How to generate addresses in PHP
Use BitWasp Bitcoin-php library
https://github.com/Bit-Wasp/bitcoin-php
<?php
use BitWasp\Bitcoin\Bitcoin;
use BitWasp\Bitcoin\Key\PrivateKeyFactory;
$network = Bitcoin::getNetwork();
$privateKey ...
- 873
8
votes
How do I create a new address in Electrum?
For one new wallet type in electrum console:
wallet.create_new_address(False)
For 100 new wallets type in electrum-console:
for i in range(0, 100): print wallet.create_new_address(False)
or just (...
- 201
8
votes
How is a Litecoin address generated?
Litecoin uses exactly the same procedure to generate addresses, the only difference is the network prefix.
On step 4 (Add version byte in front of RIPEMD-160 hash) instead of 0x00 for bitcoin use
...
- 246
8
votes
Is a bitcoin address collision possible if generating 90 million addresses every 4 hours?
A very relevant answer can be found here: Is Each Bitcoin Address Unique?
This is a question of the birthday attack on the hashes. Bitcoin addresses (assuming the "normal" style starting with a 1) ...
- 11.7k
8
votes
Accepted
How does the Bitcoin protocol deal with address collisions in wallets?
Creation of an address is an entirely offline operation; there is no communication with the network.
If you'd (with unfathomable luck) create the same address as someone else, then you'll see incoming ...
- 99.2k
7
votes
Accepted
Can you detect that the addresses generated by an HD wallet came from a single wallet?
No.
All addresses generated by HD derivation are indistinguishable to someone who does not know the parent's master key (the private one for hardened derivation, the public one for normal derivation)....
- 99.2k
7
votes
What's stopping someone from taking over all the bitcoin addresses?
There are about 2^256 private keys, 2^256 public keys, and 2^160 (simple) addresses. There are other addresses (multisig) that have more than one corresponding public key and thus more than one ...
- 105
7
votes
Accepted
How to generate a testnet address?
Bitaddress.org itself allows you to create Testnet addresses (hat tip to Nick ODell). The generator for testnet addresses can be found by appending ?testnet=true to the URL. The site now appears to ...
- 71.7k
7
votes
What is the difference between your address and your public keys
cited:
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 ...
- 247
7
votes
Accepted
Unknown Address Format Parsing Bitcoin Addresses from Blockchair Data
Having investigated this following @MCCCS answer, the following is information about the addresses provided by Blockhair support:
In fact, there are no addresses on the Bitcoin blockchain. There are
...
- 309
7
votes
Accepted
How are Electrum addresses connected to my private key?
how did Electrum create a new address?
Electrum, and most modern wallets are Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) Wallets. They derive a series of private-keys from the "master private-key".
If ...
- 24.5k
6
votes
If I were to generate an address and it happens to collide, legally speaking, would a transfer constitute theft?
IANAL.
What you describe is the act of taking something that isn't yours in full knowledge that somebody else invested effort and money to accumulate it.
Just as with your Swiss bank example: The ...
- 71.7k
6
votes
Accepted
python-bitcoinlib | Create Private Keys, Public Keys and Addresses - How to Do It?
Sorry I am not familiar with python-bitcoinlib but if your goal is to just create keys/addresses you can use this library (disclosure: I wrote it) the following way:
Generating a private key
...
- 3,529
6
votes
Accepted
How is it possible that the same WIF Private Key generates two different addresses?
The same private key can be used to derive a couple of different addresses. For example, there will be a different address generated depending on whether you use a compressed or uncompressed public ...
- 17.9k
6
votes
Accepted
Does Bitcoin Core accepts uncompressed address generation?
You can import an old uncompressed key. It'll work fine. Getnewaddress always uses scripts with 'compressed' keys now. BIP-143 (segwit) style inputs also require compression.
The smaller key format ...
- 7,676
6
votes
Accepted
How do blockchain explorers know if the address is really generated?
Bitcoin transactions on-chain do not have addresses. They have scripts as output. In theory, pretty much any script is legal on-chain (ignoring standardness rules), including many unspendable ones.
To ...
- 99.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible