Mastering Blockchain - Second Edition

Public keys in Bitcoin

Public keys exist on the blockchain and all network participants can see it. Public keys are derived from private keys due to their special mathematical relationship with the private keys. Once a transaction signed with the private key is broadcasted on the Bitcoin network, public keys are used by the nodes to verify that the transaction has indeed been signed with the corresponding private key. This process of verification proves the ownership of the bitcoin.

Bitcoin uses ECC based on the secp256k1 standard. More specifically it makes use of ECDSA to ensure that funds remain secure and can only be spent by the legitimate owner. If you need to refresh the relevant cryptography concepts, you can refer to Chapter 4, ...