When someone sends bitcoin to you, they send the bitcoin to your address. If you want to spend any of the bitcoin that is sent to your address, you cr

What is the math behind elliptic curve cryptography?

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2022-01-14 11:00:07

When someone sends bitcoin to you, they send the bitcoin to your address. If you want to spend any of the bitcoin that is sent to your address, you create a transaction and specify where your bitcoin ought to go. Such a transaction may look like:

Of course, anyone can create a transaction that looks like the one above, so if it was added to the blockchain as is and without issue, then you would be out $30,000+ whether you like it or not. Luckily, such a transaction does not belong in the blockchain, because it is missing a valid digital signature. By adding a digital signature, you can prove that you know the private key that corresponds to the address 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfN. If you don’t know the corresponding private key, then you probably shouldn’t have been telling people to send bitcoin to you via that address since you are unable to spend any of the bitcoin sent there!

When you create a bitcoin address for yourself (or an address/account for any other cryptocurrency), you generate the private key first. From the private key, you compute the corresponding public key and by hashing that public key you get your address. Hopefully you can’t choose an address first and then determine the private key from that, otherwise you could determine the private key for any address using the same method. What is Satoshi’s address again?

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