Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: total bitcoin address 2^160 or 2^160/2
by
o_e_l_e_o
on 04/10/2021, 14:41:00 UTC
There are slightly less than 2256 possible private keys.
This will generate the same number of possible uncompressed public keys and the same number of possible compressed public keys.
However, it is incorrect to consider an uncompressed and a compressed public key with the same x coordinate as two different public keys. They are the exact same point on the curve. All that is changing is how we express that point.

There are 2160 possible legacy addresses, and so on average 296 private keys per address.

1. Is it possible that Compressed address of Privatekey_X be the same as Uncompressed address of Privatekey_Y?
Yes. For an address to match two private keys, all that is required is that there is a collision on either the SHA256 or the RIPEMD160. This could potentially appen with any combination of compressed and uncompressed public keys.