Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Technical Support
Re: Anyone know how to bip38 encrypt an already-generated private key?
by
flatfly
on 21/11/2013, 10:35:17 UTC
For fun, I took the different BIP38 address generated by bit2factor.org and ran it through the details tab of bitaddress.org.  Sure enough, I get the same compressed (but unencrypted) private key that I started with.

So, I guess the system works but I just don't know how a private key can have more than one BIP38 address.


Wouldn't this technically be considered a collision since there are two different private keys for one address?

Doesn't look like a collision. IIRC, BIP38 (which is currently just a draft, by the way - things could still change) uses random salts each time, thus yielding different results.

Also, a little-known (and perhaps irrelevant) fact: there are roughly 2^96 different private keys for each address. Yes, it's a little mindblowing at first...