Wallets

Question 1

What is a wallet?

Answer 1

a bank account on a blockchain network
- can send and receive funds
- can store funds

Question 2

Do all blockchain networks have the same wallet principles?

Answer 2

99% do
but there are some differences depending on the blockchain network

usually fundamentals are the same

Question 3

What are the core components of a wallet?

Answer 3

Private Key
- password to the wallet
- most important aspect of wallet
- cannot loose in any circumstance
- if you lose private key, cannot access, cannot use funds, and no one else can either
- no help desk, no support, nothing you can do if you loose access
- print it out, make copies, put a physical copy in a safe
Public Key
Address

all highly coorelated

Question 4

What is a private key?

Answer 4

Password to the wallet
64 digit hexadecimal string (randomly generated)
- a long STRING
- can be infinite number of wallets on network
- anyone can generate a private key to generate a wallet
- most important part of wallet, do NOT lose
- DO NOT share it with anyone
- store it completely offline
- it can be encrypted
- scrambled using a password + encryption algorithm
- taking STRING (private key) + text password (someone you remember), join together, put in encryption algorithm, get random encrypted data
- can decrypt by taking Private Key (PK) + Password (PWD) + encyrption algorithm to get the raw password (Hexadecimal string)
- if someone gets your password, it would be encrypted, you’d have the password (required) to decrypt it

Question 5

What is a public key?

Answer 5

unique identifier for wallet
- random 64 digit hexadecimal string generated from private key
- difficult to type out and use
- from private key generate public key (via hash function)
- take private key (PK), pass to hash function, spits out public key

Question 6

What is an address?

Answer 6

take one main public key, pass to hash function, get address (es)
- 27 and 34 alphanumeric characters (half length of public key)
- adds one more layer of security
- easier to use on network
- it all starts with the private key
- address is easier to use than public key (64 digital hexadecimal)
- some networks allow you to have multiple addresses for same public key
- can give out different addresses to people to organize funds

private key -> public key -> address