What does signing a bitcoin address do?

efeaydin

full member

Activity: 181

Merit: 102

Quote from: metalbean on September 03, 2017, 07:56:59 AM

I've been asked to sign my address so that Byteball wallet can verify it. While on the outset it looks very safe as I am just linking a message(byteball address) to my bitcoin address and sharing the signed signature to Byteball wallet.

Can I just check if this is 100% safe? Is there any chance of compromise?

Thanks

You provide that this address is your address by signing a message. It is safe because private key is used to sign the mesaage but not included into signed mesaage. They can only find your public key from a signed message.

ranochigo

legendary

Activity: 3038

Merit: 4418

Crypto Swap Exchange

It is safe. The message signing uses your private key and a message to generate a signature. The signature can be used to be verified against the address and message. It's most commonly used to verify your identity.

The signature does not contain your private key but your public key can be derived from it. It is not an issue at all since capable quantum computers aren't here yet. The only thing that will be exposed is your public key but that is also present in the transactions that you sent.

Tl;dr: Completely safe.

metalbean

full member

Activity: 448

Merit: 103

I've been asked to sign my address so that Byteball wallet can verify it. While on the outset it looks very safe as I am just linking a message(byteball address) to my bitcoin address and sharing the signed signature to Byteball wallet.

Can I just check if this is 100% safe? Is there any chance of compromise?

Thanks

Topic: What does signing a bitcoin address do? (Read 428 times)