Describe the concept of public and private key with your own words.
A private key is a randomly generated number that belongs only to the Bitcoin holder. The “universe will implode” before two private keys are the same. If somebody were to have access to another person’s private key, they would have access to their crypto funds. If the private key is lost, funds are lost.
The private key is paired with a public key which is derived from the private key via a mathematical formula. Public keys cannot be reverse engineered to determine the private key. The combination of a public and private key produces the bitcoin address. Public keys can be shared with the world.
What 2 use-cases can public key cryptography be used for?
The private-public key pair can be used for encryption and/or for digital signatures on the blockchain network.
In encryption, messages potentially seen by others can be encrypted using the public key of the message recipient, and then only the message recipient can read that message using his/her private key.
In cryptocurrency transactions, the private key acts as a digital signature and proves who the message was sent by. The private key of the transaction originator is sent along with the transaction and that key is compared against the known public key, with the mathematical formula proving that the two are a pair. This prevents people spending/transferring/hacking money that does not belong to them.