Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Merits 1 from 1 user
Re: Odd or even?
by
o_e_l_e_o
on 17/01/2022, 16:26:31 UTC
⭐ Merited by n0nce (1)
But, there are at least on the curve, two private keys that are completely different from each other. At the same time they form identical (identical)
Public key
HASH160
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The address  compressed and uncompressed.
Each private key corresponds to one public key. That public key can expressed in two ways - compressed and uncompressed - but they both refer to the same point on the curve. There are almost 2256 possible private keys, and the same number of possible public keys (or double that if you count compressed and uncompressed public keys separately).

There are only 2160 possible P2PKH addresses though, since to reach an address you must use the RIPEMD-160 function, which outputs a 160 bit result. So there are in the region 296 possible different private keys which will all give the same address (and again, more than that if you consider compressed and uncompressed public keys separately).