The Address is not the Public Key

Because I keep seeing people call the first bits/address the public key, I want to post this clarification. A Bitcoin address is NOT the same as a public key, although they are related. Bitcoin addresses are the 160-bit hash of the public key, compressed and encoded (typically in Base58Check) to create the address.

Distinctions between address and public key:

Derivation: The private key generates the public key, which in turn is hashed to create the wallet address. You can derive the address from the public key, but you cannot reverse the process to get the public key from the address.

Length and Format: Public keys are significantly longer (typically 256 bits or 64 bytes) and complex, whereas addresses are shorter (160 bits or 20 bytes) to reduce the risk of typing errors and improve privacy.

Security and Privacy: Using the hashed address rather than the raw public key provides an extra layer of security. The full public key is only revealed on the blockchain when a transaction is spent from that address, helping to protect against potential future cryptographic attacks, such as those from quantum computers.