Topic: address, key/pair, block confusion? (Read 342 times)
Danny, thanks for such a great reply. I will continue to dig in and study all the material at the links you provided. I will get this picture into my mind correctly sooner or later. You have been a big help by giving me all this information.
Are the public/private keys tied to a bitcoin
No. The public key is hashed and encoded into an address.
The keys are used to sign transactions.
and fractional coins or to the bitcoin block of many?
At the technical level, there are no coins. There are only transactions. The concept of "a bitcoin" or "a piece of a bitcoin" is just an abstraction that we humans use to make it easier to talk about the transfer of control over value.
if I have 3.25 bitcoin. Are the 3 whole and .25 parts all managed with the same key pair?
There are no parts. There are only transactions that you have received, and transaction outputs that you have spent.
The key pair that is needed to spend a transaction output depends on the conditions that are encoded into that output.
I send out my address if I wish to receive bitcoins. If I have 1 bitcoin and receive 1, is another key pair generated
No. The address effectively has only a single public key and a single private key.
However, there is new transaction output in the blockchain valued at "1 BTC" that you have the ability to spend.
and now used for a new structure/block for both? A better question might be are individual bitcoins encrypted or some higher level structure which contains many encrypted?
Bitcoins are not encrypted. Transactions are not encrypted. The blockchain is not encrypted. Your wallet might be encrypted if you set a password. If that is true, then what is encrypted is your private keys.
I have reached the conclusion that there is no real relationship between the address and the keys
You are incorrect. The address is the base58check encoding of a RIPEMD160 hash of a SHA256 hash of the public key.
but I still don’t have a good grasp on what is actually encrypted, one coin or many?
Bitcoins are not encrypted. Transactions are not encrypted. The blockchain is not encrypted. If your wallet is encrypted, it just means that your private keys are encrypted.
Does a block contain 1 bitcoin only, that doesn't seem workable?
A block contains a list of transactions.
I’m not expecting any one to give me a long explanation if they can send me to a place to read up I will do that. I think I need a better understanding on what a block really contains.
Your understanding of how bitcoin works at a technical level is entirely wrong. You need to unlearn everything you think you know about bitcoin.
Start with the original Satoshi whitepaper. It doesn't do a good job of explaining all the implementation details that were eventually developed for bitcoin, but it gives a good introduction to the larger concepts behind bitcoin and blockchain.
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Next, watch this video. It goes into a bit more detail about the types of problems that bitcoin is overcoming and how it overcomes them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4
Finally, here are some good technical descriptions of addresses, transactions, transaction scripting commands, blocks, and block headers:
I’m having some trouble with the issue of a bitcoin address and the private key and how they relate to a block.
I have not seen the low level data structure of the blockchain, code level structured linked lists etc and not sure I wan’t to go that far.
I may not even be able to get the question right, I’ll give it my best shot.
Are the public/private keys tied to a bitcoin and fractional coins or to the bitcoin block of many? if I have 3.25 bitcoin. Are the 3 whole and .25 parts all managed with the same key pair? I send out my address if I wish to receive bitcoins. If I have 1 bitcoin and receive 1, is another key pair generated and now used for a new structure/block for both? A better question might be are individual bitcoins encrypted or some higher level structure which contains many encrypted?
I have reached the conclusion that there is no real relationship between the address and the keys but I still don’t have a good grasp on what is actually encrypted, one coin or many? Does a block contain 1 bitcoin only, that doesn't seem workable?
I’m not expecting any one to give me a long explanation if they can send me to a place to read up I will do that. I think I need a better understanding on what a block really contains.
I have not seen the low level data structure of the blockchain, code level structured linked lists etc and not sure I wan’t to go that far.
I may not even be able to get the question right, I’ll give it my best shot.
Are the public/private keys tied to a bitcoin and fractional coins or to the bitcoin block of many? if I have 3.25 bitcoin. Are the 3 whole and .25 parts all managed with the same key pair? I send out my address if I wish to receive bitcoins. If I have 1 bitcoin and receive 1, is another key pair generated and now used for a new structure/block for both? A better question might be are individual bitcoins encrypted or some higher level structure which contains many encrypted?
I have reached the conclusion that there is no real relationship between the address and the keys but I still don’t have a good grasp on what is actually encrypted, one coin or many? Does a block contain 1 bitcoin only, that doesn't seem workable?
I’m not expecting any one to give me a long explanation if they can send me to a place to read up I will do that. I think I need a better understanding on what a block really contains.
Jump to: