Private Keys
By CoinGecko | Updated on Mar 03, 2020
In public-key cryptography - one of the basis of cryptocurrency, digital keys are generated from a large random number through a cryptograhic key generation program to produce a private key and public key. In such a system, anyone can encrypt a message using the receiver's public key, but that encrypted message can only be decrypted with the receiver's private key.
Private keys must be stored securely to maintain the safety of one's cryptocurrency. "not your keys, not your coins".
Related Terms
Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a form of security that tracks a collection of securites such as stocks, bonds, index or cryptocurrency but tradeable like a single stock.
Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)
Refers to specialized computers that are made to do a very specific task (eg. calculate hashes for Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work)
Privacy Coins
Cryptocurrencies that are designed with transaction anonimity and user privacy in mind.
Wei
The smallest fraction of an Ether, with each Ether to 1000000000000000000 Wei.
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