Protocol & Consensus • Estimated 20m

X-Only Public Keys

protocol.x-only-public-keys

X-only public keys encode only the x coordinate of a secp256k1 point and restrict valid keys to one y-coordinate parity choice. Taproot and Schnorr use this 32-byte form to simplify key handling and reduce witness size.

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Curated resources (3)

• Programming Bitcoin (book) Deeper walk-through of the cryptography, scripting, and transaction mechanics behind this topic.
• BIP 340: Schnorr Signatures for secp256k1 (article) Defines the x-only key format used by Bitcoin Schnorr signatures.
• BIP 341: Taproot (article) Shows how x-only keys appear in Taproot internal keys and output keys.

Direct prerequisites (2)

• Public/Private Keys
• Schnorr Signatures

Direct dependents (1)

• TapTweak

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