CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bitcoinblockchainbitcoind
mannutech
mannutech

Reputation: 1022

Can two Bitcoin clients create identical private keys ( or string )

In the rarest of the rarest condition can two btc wallets create conflicting private keys or initialising strings. if yes then what would be the case. If no then reason

Upvotes: 0

Views: 356

Answers (1)

Urko
Urko

Reputation: 1477

The private key is just a random number so large that it makes it impossible to generate another equal one. There are different algorithms to calculate the private and public keys. For example RSA or ECDSA.

  • ECDSA is used in Bitcoin
  • RSA is the most popular

Briefly, RSA consists of multiplying two prime numbers. It is very easy to calculate in one sense, but very difficult to do in the opposite one. In an extremely basic way, its principle works like this: let's say give us these combinations of numbers 456, 645, 835, 2345 and multiply their numbers with each other. The results might look something like this:

  • 4 * 5 * 6 = 120
  • 6 * 4 * 5 = 120
  • 8 * 3 * 5 = 120
  • 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 = 120

All would give the same figure, 120. However, if we were given the number 120 (public key) we could not know for sure what initial combination (private key) we used to get to 120, because they all yield the same result.

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions