Re: What is the difference between seed phrase and private key?
Why call a string made up of letters and numbers (alphanumeric string) a number? I guess there is a logical explanation behind it.
Any private key is actually an integer between 0 and 2256 and is converted to other formats like WIF. (That's for making the copy-pasting easier and decreasing the chance of mistakes with including a checksum).https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook/blob/develop/ch04.asciidoc
Of course, not any integer between 0 and 2256 can be a valid private key. Due to secp256k1 ECDSA standard, the number of valid private keys is a bit smaller.
Yes. Private key can be any number between 0 and n-1 where n is a constant n = 1.1578 * 1077, slightly less than 2256More precisely, the private key can be any number between 0 and n - 1 inclusive, where n is a constant (n = 1.1578 * 1077, slightly less than 2256) defined as the order of the elliptic curve used in bitcoin (see Elliptic Curve Cryptography Explained). To create such a key, we randomly pick a 256-bit number and check that it is less than n. In programming terms, this is usually achieved by feeding a larger string of random bits, collected from a cryptographically secure source of randomness, into the SHA256 hash algorithm, which will conveniently produce a 256-bit number. If the result is less than n, we have a suitable private key. Otherwise, we simply try again with another random number.