What You Need to Know About Public and Private Keys in Cryptocurrency World

Asymmetric encryption is also known as key-pairs that are created from various cryptographic algorithms. The key-pairs are composed of two things: a public key and a private key. The key-pairs enable users to encrypt and decrypt messages between two entities. For instance, let’s assume that you and I want to communicate across the network securely. To achieve secure communication, we need to encrypt our messages on the network. Otherwise, our messages might be captured across the network. However, to encrypt the message, we need to use public and private keys. Your public key could be thought of it as a lock where it cannot be opened without the key. Therefore, it is totally fine to share your locked lock (public key) with anyone. However, you must keep your private key safe. You should never share your private key with anyone.

Back to the example of sharing data on a secure network. Let’s suppose that you want to say “hi there” to me. To encrypt the message, we first need to share our public keys with each other’s, which could be done in a few ways that are out the scope of this article. However, let’s think of it as we would share it through email. At this point, we both would have each other’s public keys. Then, all you need to do is to encrypt your message with my public key and sign the encrypted message with your private key to authenticate the message that it has been sent from a valid sender to an intended receiver. The encrypted message is also called “cyphertext.” Therefore, your message can’t be read even if someone captures it during the transmission phase. Once I receive your encrypted message, I would not be able to read your message because it is encrypted. To decrypt your message, I must use the public key that you have shared with me earlier, which will transform the message back to its original form.