Thanks so much for the info. What are the chances I would select a private key that is already in use or that someone has access to but looks not do because it's empty?
It seems when self selecting a private key one could be playing the lottery for free and stumble on a key someone else had btc on. Up until I learned this I thought Bitcoin was more secure than I do now. It still seems pretty secure none the less. But there is a chance less than winning the power ball ten times in a row that you get someone else's wallet.
Topic: how to i figure out my own private key/public key? - page 2. (Read 2359 times)
With Coinbase you do not have access to the private keys, they are the custodians of your coins.
With Blockchain.info go to Import/Export and there you can find your private keys.
yep, if you select export witouth encrypt, you will see all your private keys, when you export to a paper wallet, you will see under your btc address your private key in bitcoin-qt format With Blockchain.info go to Import/Export and there you can find your private keys.
With Coinbase you do not have access to the private keys, they are the custodians of your coins.
With Blockchain.info go to Import/Export and there you can find your private keys.
With Blockchain.info go to Import/Export and there you can find your private keys.
is it impossible to know this if you set up a wallet on a website like coinbase
Yes, it is impossible. However, what Coinbase provides is not a "wallet" (even if they like to try and call it that. Coinbase provides you an account on their system. They store all the bitcoins in their own wallet (effectively meaning the bitcoins belong to Coinbase and not to you). Then they promise to honor the balance represented in their database for your "account" and send the same amount of their bitcoins wherever you ask them to.
and blockchain.info?
No, it is not impossible. With blockchain.info you have exclusive control of the private keys. As long as you don't have any malware, blockchain.info does not have access to your private keys, only you do.
or do i have to choose my own private key and do the math to figure out the public key and create a wallet based off my private key from the start in order to know it?
You certainly could do that if you wanted to, but most people don't bother. Most bitcoin wallets (such as Bitoin Core, Armory, Electrum, MultiBit, Blockchain.info, etc) provide a way to access your private keys if you really want to.
also how would you do that?
How would you calculate it? You'd start by generating a TRULY random number between 1 and 1.15X1077. That's your private key. Next you would perform point multiplication with the secp256k1 curve. The resulting point is your public key. Then you would follow these steps to get a bitcoin address:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_version_1_Bitcoin_addresses
is it impossible to know this if you set up a wallet on a website like coinbase and blockchain.info?
or do i have to choose my own private key and do the math to figure out the public key and create a wallet based off my private key from the start in order to know it?
also how would you do that?
or do i have to choose my own private key and do the math to figure out the public key and create a wallet based off my private key from the start in order to know it?
also how would you do that?
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