Solidity Programming Essentials

Externally owned accounts

Externally owned accounts are accounts that are owned by people on Ethereum. Accounts are not referred to by name in Ethereum. When an externally owned account is created on Ethereum by an individual, a public/private key is generated. The private key is kept safe with the individual while the public key becomes the identity of this externally owned account. This public key is generally of 256 characters, however, Ethereum uses the first 160 characters to represent the identity of an account.

If Bob, for example, creates an account on an Ethereum network—whether private or public, he will have his private key available to himself while the first 160 characters of his public key will become his identity. Other accounts ...