Crypto assets, as we know, don’t have any physical existence and are purely digital in nature. Cryptocurrency assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum or NFTs are stored on blockchains. As one can’t keep them directly in his wallet like cash, he needs a Crypto wallet to gain control over his crypto funds.
The wallet saves information about your public and private keys, which gives you ownership of your holdings. Whenever you want to send or receive cryptocurrency, you need both your public and private keys.
PUBLIC KEY
Public Key is the location of your crypto currency and tokens on the blockchain.
It is same as your account number in the bank. In case you want to send money or take money from someone, you share your bank account number with them. Similarly, if you want to send or receive cryptos to someone, you can just give them the address of your public key.
These people can view your public keys as a wallet address — a hashed, or more compressed version of that public key.
PRIVATE KEY
Private keys are like the passwords to your bank accounts that allow you to gain access over your cryptocurrency stored on blockchain. Without your password, no one else can have access to your crypto holdings.
The private key is encrypted, thereby meaning that any outside party cannot control your digital wallet. Without access to proper keys to unencrypt the message, no one except you can operate your crypto account.
But just in case you lose your private key, you will have to forego all your assets as well, then there is no way to retrieve the digital currency and assets.
Therefore, it is strongly recommended not to share your private key with anyone.
That makes it all the more important to keep your wallet key safe and use a trusted wallet provider only.
