What is a BSV Address and a WIF?

What is a BSV Address and a WIF?

What is a BSV Address?

A BSV address is simply a human-readable identifier that represents where satoshis can be sent.

Technically, it is built as follows:

1. Start with the public key from an ECDSA key pair.

2. Take the compressed x-coordinate of that public key.

3. Apply SHA-256, then RIPEMD-160 → this gives the Public-Key-Hash.

4. Add a version byte.

5. Encode using Base58Check to make it shorter, readable, and error-checked.

👉 In Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash (P2PKH) transactions, the BSV address is the message digest (the “Public-Key-Hash”) to which satoshis are locked.

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What is a WIF?

A WIF (Wallet Import Format) key is a way to encode private keys for easy transfer between wallets.

• Like addresses, WIFs also use Base58Check encoding.

• Instead of a public key hash, a WIF encodes the private key’s serialised value (d).

• Unlike addresses, WIFs do not use HASH-160.

👉 Key takeaway:

• Addresses = Public side (where funds are received).

• WIFs = Private side (used to import/export keys securely).

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Example: Generating a Key Pair in GoLang

Using the libsv libraries, you can generate a Bitcoin ECDSA public-private key pair:

package main 

import ( 
    "fmt" 
    "github.com/libsv/go-bk/bec" 
    "github.com/libsv/go-bt/v2/bscript" 
) 

func main() { 
    privKey, _ := bec.NewPrivateKey(bec.S256()) 
    pubKey := privKey.PubKey() 
    fmt.Println("Private Key:", privKey) 
    fmt.Println("Public Key:", pubKey) 
}

✅ Summary:

• A BSV address = HASH-160 of the public key, formatted with Base58Check, used in transactions.

• A WIF = Base58Check encoding of the private key, making wallets portable and user-friendly.