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Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: Pubkeys with even y coordinate correspond to privKeys that are less than n/2?
by
SamYezi
on 18/09/2022, 18:29:25 UTC
The question is, if the ycoordinate of a public key is even, does it mean that the corresponding private key is less than n/2 by its value? If the y is odd, the private key is more than n/2?
Is there any relationship between the eveness/oddness of the y (or x) coordinate and the value of the corresponding private key?
No, there isn't. You cannot infer anything about the private key from knowledge of only the public key.

A quick example. Private key 4 gives the following public key:
Code:
x = E493DBF1C10D80F3581E4904930B1404CC6C13900EE0758474FA94ABE8C4CD13
y = 51ED993EA0D455B75642E2098EA51448D967AE33BFBDFE40CFE97BDC47739922

Private key 6 gives the following public key:
Code:
x = FFF97BD5755EEEA420453A14355235D382F6472F8568A18B2F057A1460297556
y = AE12777AACFBB620F3BE96017F45C560DE80F0F6518FE4A03C870C36B075F297

As you can see, both x coordinates and both y coordinates have opposite signs.

Is there any way to know that the private key is more or less than n/2 while not knowing the private key itself?
Again, no.

Is there a way to find out the public key of an address that never sent Bitcoin but only received it?
Depends on the address. If the address is a hash of the public key, such as in P2PKH or P2WPKH, then no. If the address is not a hash of the public key, such as in P2PK or P2TR, then yes.

The other option is if the public key has been revealed via another means, such as a signing a message, openly being shared, or being leaked.

I got a few more questions. Suppose that we have a Public Key that is generated by an "odd" private key like 113*G.
What will happen if we try to "half" this public key using these methods?
https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/59972/half-of-any-bitcoin-crypto-public-key-public-key-half-is-possible
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4455904.0