Bitcoin and Public Key Cryptography
Bitcoin uses public key cryptography for creating a key pair that gives access to the funds in bitcoin. The private key allows the user to sign transactions and spend bitcoins; therefore, it needs to be kept secret. The public key is used to create a bitcoin address through which the user receives bitcoin. The bitcoin address can be safely shared with anyone willing to send us bitcoins:, public key cryptography does not allow to recover the private key from the public key.
A public key is a cryptographic code generated by a private key: the 2 keys are linked by a matematical relationship which enables to check whether the 2 keys are related without disclosing the private key. In this article we are going to see how bitcoin uses public key cryptography.
