Cryptography In Ethereum

What is cryptography?
How does cryptography work in Ethereum?
The Keys and Addresses in Ethereum

Every door needs a key. In Ethereum, there are two types of keys:- Public Keys and Private Keys. These keys come in pairs and these keys are gotten through a method known as cryptography.

What is Cryptography?:-

According to Google, Cryptography is the practice of securing information and communication by converting it into a coded format that can only be deciphered by those with the appropriate key or knowledge*.*

Ethereum makes use of a cryptography known as Public-Key Cryptography.

WHAT IS PUBLIC-KEY CRYPTOGRAPHY?

Public Key Cryptography(or assymetric cryptography) is a type of cryptography that uses two keys for encryption and decryption. It makes use of the public key for encryption and the private key for decryption. These keys are based on mathematical functions that are complex and difficult to invert(trapdoor functions). The main type of public key cryptography function used in Ethereum known as Elliptic Curve Cryptography.

PRIVATE KEYS

A private key is simply a randomly selected number. This number can be any number between 1 and 2^256. To create a private key, a 256-bit number is randomly selected and fed into a hash algorithm such as Keccak-256 or SHA-256.

PUBLIC KEY

In Ethereum, the public key is gotten from a private key by a complex one-way mathematical equation known as the elliptic curve multiplication:- K = k * G where k is the private key, G is the constant point called the generator point. K is the resulting public key.

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