Addresses

It is important to note that Bitcoin Addresses are a wallet concern. Wallets use Bitcoin Addresses as a “user-friendly” means of obtaining public key hashes from wallet users. I.e. the addresses we create never end up inside bitcoin Transactions. Addresses are envelopes for public-key-hashes. Public key hashes do appear in bitcoin transactions.

Obtaining an Address

Since addresses contain hashes of public keys, it stands to reason that we can obtain an address directly from a public key.

//create a random private key
var pk = SVPrivateKey(networkType: NetworkType.REGTEST);
SVPublicKey pubKey = pk.publicKey;

//obtain an address from the public key
Address addr = pubKey.toAddress(NetworkType.REGTEST);

Serialising Addresses

The generally accepted format for sharing Addresses publicly, is in their base58-encoded form. It typically looks like this:

//example base58-encoded address : 2NB72XtkjpnATMggui83aEtPawyyKvnbX2o

• Construct from base58 encoding

    var addr = Address.fromBase58('2NB72XtkjpnATMggui83aEtPawyyKvnbX2o');
  

• Serialise to base58 encoding

    Address addr = pubKey.toAddress(NetworkType.REGTEST);
    var addr = Address.toBase58();