Cryptographic keys

On the Bitcoin network, possession of Bitcoins and the transfer of value via transactions are reliant upon private keys, public keys, and addresses. Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is used to generate public and private key pairs in the Bitcoin network. We have already covered these concepts in Chapter 4, Public Key Cryptography, and here we will see how private and public keys are used in the Bitcoin network.

Private keys in Bitcoin

Private keys are required to be kept safe and normally reside only on the owner's side. Private keys are used to digitally sign the transactions, proving ownership of the bitcoins.

Private keys are fundamentally 256-bit numbers randomly chosen in the range specified by the SECP256K1 ECDSA curve recommendation. Any randomly chosen 256-bit number from 0x1 to 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFE BAAE DCE6 AF48 A03B BFD2 5E8C D036 4140 is a valid private key.

Private keys are usually encoded using Wallet Import Format (WIF) in...