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Useful description, but some not 100% accurate statements: "A private key is nothing but a large pseudorandom number roughly between 1 and 2^256" Not sure how
by ghshephard 12y ago
Useful description, but some not 100% accurate statements:
"A private key is nothing but a large pseudorandom number roughly between 1 and 2^256"
Not sure how the "pseudorandom" came in there - the private key might be random, or pseudo-random, or entirely deterministic - it's essential property is that it's just a 256 bit sequence that is unknown to others.
"It’s perfectly safe to give your Bitcoin addresses to other people, but extremely important to keep your private keys secret. "
The essential point trying to be made here is that the Bitcoin Address won't allow people to determine your private key. but there are a lot of reasons why you would not want to give your Bitcoin address to other people - the key reason being that it allows to track you. There is one philosophy that suggests you should change your Bitcoin address on every transaction.
Overall, though, a nice introductory article to Bitcoin - I'd recommend it to others.
- leni536 12y agoJust for nitpicking, a number is neither pseudorandom or random. It could be randomly generated though.
- Amsterdam88 12y agoThere is no random number generation.. not before we've managed quantum computing.
- Sammi 12y agoYeah, it should be something like: "A private key is nothing but a number roughly between 1 and 2^256, that is only known by you. This number is usually pseudorandomly generated by your bitcoin client, but it could be generated in any way. The important thing is that it is an uncommon large number, that others will not be able to easily guess."
- jc123 12y ago> "A private key is nothing but a large pseudorandom number roughly between 1 and 2^256 Note: Nearly every 256-bit number is a valid private key. Specifically, any 256-bit number between 0x1 and 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFE BAAE DCE6 AF48 A03B BFD2 5E8C D036 4141 is a valid private key. The range of valid private keys is governed by the secp256k1 ECDSA standard used by Bitcoin. Source is the Bitcoin wiki, https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key which surprisingly isn't listed as one of the references in the post.