Yes it's good.
Although the whole private key thing is so confusing. The cryptography behind. I knew what does a hash function do in the past, but I didn't know how it works.
Topic: Not all 52-length strings create private keys? (Read 250 times)
Apart of fact that these calculations makes no sense (as there are few letters of checksum, at the beginning could be only K or L, etc.) then yes. 52^58 is much much bigger than 2^256. You may easily chck it, just google for "52^58 - 2^256" ;-)
Shouldn't it be 58^52? And in case BlackHatCoiner has OCD, here's the long version:Number of possible private keys (0xfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffebaaedce6af48a03bbfd25e8cd0364140):
115,792,089,237,316,195,423,570,985,008,687,907,852,837,564,279,074,904,382,605,163,141,518,161,494,336
Versus the number of possible WIF private keys - w/ 'compressed' flag [2(58^51)] - bec. as PawGo said, 1st char can only be L or K:
1,721,304,354,322,858,219,998,073,995,373,832,299,052,209,661,408,398,572,522,296,403,141,565,996,879,834,236,147,728,384
@BlackHatCoiner isn't that good? Because unlike addresses, there will be an astronomically lower chance of collision for Prv key and WIF (Wallet Import Format).
Ah. I thought all the possible different combinations were all possible 52-length strings.
Would this be a greater number than 2²⁵⁶?
Would this be a greater number than 2²⁵⁶?
Apart of fact that these calculations makes no sense (as there are few letters of checksum, at the beginning could be only K or L, etc.) then yes. 58^52 is much much bigger than 2^256. You may easily chck it, just google for "58^52 - 2^256" ;-)
Because it's not encoded in a valid way.
a valid private key is just a number below
which you convert to a WIF by adding version, checksum, compression, and base58 encoding.
So
for privkeys, we add 0x80 as version, we double SHA256 it to get the checksum, and then encode it appropriately.
So, adding, we get
Because we want the compressed pubkey, we add 0x01 to the end.
Double SHA256 it, we get
concat the first 4 bytes to the encoded buffer, so we get
now base58 encode it, and you get
As stated above, changing any of the characters in the resulting string invalidates the entire key.
Why, you may ask?
Decoding
a valid private key is just a number below
Code:
115792089237316195423570985008687907852837564279074904382605163141518161494337
which you convert to a WIF by adding version, checksum, compression, and base58 encoding.
So
Code:
c8732e48be68ee2f0792f8c428337dafd6066ae5f2a5d86ae81e48e14b4c755f
for privkeys, we add 0x80 as version, we double SHA256 it to get the checksum, and then encode it appropriately.
So, adding
Code:
80 c8 73 2e 48 be 68 ee 2f 07 92 f8 c4 28 33 7d af d6 06 6a e5 f2 a5 d8 6a e8 1e 48 e1 4b 4c 75 5f 01
Because we want the compressed pubkey, we add 0x01 to the end.
Double SHA256 it, we get
Code:
6a 45 c1 63 58 6f 23 c6 1d ef 89 f5 0b 16 38 96 67 f0 32 67 48 ae b9 58 c3 fb cb 8e 08 3c 79 d9
concat the first 4 bytes to the encoded buffer, so we get
Code:
80 c8 73 2e 48 be 68 ee 2f 07 92 f8 c4 28 33 7d af d6 06 6a e5 f2 a5 d8 6a e8 1e 48 e1 4b 4c 75 5f 01 6a 45 c1 63
now base58 encode it, and you get
Code:
L3wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG
As stated above, changing any of the characters in the resulting string invalidates the entire key.
Why, you may ask?
Decoding
Code:
L4wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG
results in Code:
80 e6 49 8d e8 4c 1e 5e 7f 4c e2 60 ab 37 6f f4 85 68 3a 32 07 04 a4 01 28 7d fa 27 12 2b e0 99 5f 01 6a 45 c1 63
for which the calculated SHA hash is (remove original checksum first!) Code:
f2 b5 8d 69 d8 d7 f4 84 04 0c 5d d5 97 c7 5b fa a8 94 ac f9 ca e0 a7 5e 83 01 b3 bf 79 19 80 9e
As you can see, the first 4 bytes do not match.
Ah. I thought all the possible different combinations were all possible 52-length strings.
Would this be a greater number than 2²⁵⁶?
Would this be a greater number than 2²⁵⁶?
What do I mean.
Let's take this private key: L3wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG
It generates that address: 1B2N5m6WhZ3eGQb2Th7L6khR9JDjSdG1Fh
If I use this private key: L4wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG it won't generate me an address. Why that? I thought all 52-length strings generate their public keys.
Let's take this private key: L3wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG
It generates that address: 1B2N5m6WhZ3eGQb2Th7L6khR9JDjSdG1Fh
If I use this private key: L4wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG it won't generate me an address. Why that? I thought all 52-length strings generate their public keys.
Look at this page: https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/wif
It explains conversion between WIF and private key (and vice versa). If you change L3 to L4, you will see that checksum is wrong (correct should be "f2b58d69" which produces WIF: L4wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6fzPpX2) As you see, the last characters are now changed.
In other words - if you replace one random character in WIF, the most probably you will receive wrong WIF, which will be rejected by wallet if you try to import it.
Wif or wallet import format keys also contain compression information and a checksum.
The private key type you are referring to is most likely either the raw binary, decimal or hexadecimal private key.
The private key type you are referring to is most likely either the raw binary, decimal or hexadecimal private key.
it is because bitcoin private keys are not strings. they are integers that are encoded using a special encoding called base58 (since it uses 58 characters). and this special encoding has a checksum at the end which means when you change a random character there is a high chance that the whole thing becomes invalid.
What do I mean.
Let's take this private key: L3wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG
It generates that address: 1B2N5m6WhZ3eGQb2Th7L6khR9JDjSdG1Fh
If I use this private key: L4wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG it won't generate me an address. Why that? I thought all 52-length strings generate their public keys.
Let's take this private key: L3wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG
It generates that address: 1B2N5m6WhZ3eGQb2Th7L6khR9JDjSdG1Fh
If I use this private key: L4wMo5Z7UdvqTRmTRAjtowUAqDrKmKpvuWbLZtgFkmWvT6cW7xDG it won't generate me an address. Why that? I thought all 52-length strings generate their public keys.
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