Hellar wallets at their core are a collection of private keys. These collections are stored digitally in a file, or can even be physically stored on pieces of paper.
Private keys are what are used to unlock duffs from a particular address. In Hellar, a private key in standard format is simply a 256-bit number, between the values:
0x01
and 0xFFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFE BAAE DCE6 AF48 A03B BFD2 5E8C D036 4140
, representing nearly the entire range of 2256-1 values. The range is governed by the secp256k1 ECDSA encryption standard used by Hellar.
In order to make copying of private keys less prone to error, Wallet Import Format may be utilized. WIF uses base58check encoding on a private key, greatly decreasing the chance of copying error, much like standard Hellar addresses.
0xCC
byte in front of it for mainnet addresses or 0xEF
for testnet addresses.0x01
byte after it if it should be used with compressed public keys (described in a later subsection). Nothing is appended if it is used with uncompressed public keys.The process is easily reversible, using the Base58 decoding function, and removing the padding.
Mini private key format is a method for encoding a private key in under 30 characters, enabling keys to be embedded in a small physical space and more damage-resistant QR codes.
h
’.00
, it is well-formatted. This key restriction acts as a typo-checking mechanism. A user brute forces the process using random numbers until a well-formatted mini private key is produced.