Technical dictionary
Public key
Shareable half of a key pair used to verify signatures or encrypt to a holder of the matching private key.
Definition
In public-key cryptography, the public key can be distributed while the private key remains secret. On many blockchains, revealing a public key (for example at spend time) is a critical exposure event for quantum planning.
Address formats that hash the public key delay visibility until first use—address reuse removes that benefit.