Public and private keys
Public and private keys are two different keys used to protect, through cryptography, the information in an account on a blockchain.
The public key is like a username on a website.
The private key is like a password, it is private information that should only be known to the person to whom it belongs. It is used to open or access the information found at the public key address, as well as to carry out the desired transactions.
Blockchain technology is based on asymmetric cryptography, which is a type of cryptography that uses two different keys to encrypt and decrypt information: public and private. This means that anyone can encrypt a message using the recipient’s public key, but only the holder of the corresponding private (usually the recipient) can decrypt it.
A wallet helps us manage public and private keys, and can be a software (usually an extension in our browser). Once we install it on our computer, an algorithm will generate the pairs of public and private keys corresponding to an address. Cryptography guarantees that each private key corresponds to a unique public key and that it is impossible to know the private key from the public key.