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For paper wallets generated at bitaddress.org, are the public keys and BTC addresses the same thing?

User X
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  • You could read more about bitcoin addresses on bitcoin.it https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_version_1_Bitcoin_addresses#How_to_create_Bitcoin_Address – Tailer Nov 29 '17 at 19:57

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No, they're not the same thing. Paper wallets are not generated differently as/in to comparison to normal wallets.

a bitcoin adress is part of a public key.

The address is at its most basic just a hash of the public key. The hash functions involved (RIPEMD-160 and SHA256) are cryptographic hash functions. They are often also referred to as one-way functions, which is exactly the reason why you cannot derive the public key from the address.

Oneway functions provide exactly that a = f(pk) so that given a you cannot derive pk.

So, an adress is basically the hash of a public key. x/x

Some good more indepth explanations of the differences here -> https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3filud/whats_the_difference_between_public_key_and/ctp3fc7/?st=jald5nmq&sh=620d5934

And, how the adress is derived from the public key is explained here ->

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Technical_background_of_version_1_Bitcoin_addresses

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Rutger Versteegden
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  • Thank you for your answer. So, if I access bitaddress.org to create a paper wallet and generate a pair of public key and private key, how do I know what my Bitcoin address is if I want to send Bitcoins to that wallet? – User X Nov 29 '17 at 18:49
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    You will need to generate an adress using the public key of the wallet. – Rutger Versteegden Nov 29 '17 at 19:03
  • I have read the links, but it is still not clear to me how I obtain the Bitcoin address so I can store BTC there. I want to make sure I'm sending the BTC to the right address. – User X Nov 29 '17 at 19:15
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    So, you've currently generated a Bitcoin public key + private key, right? You will either need to put that private key + public key into a wallet, or tool to create an adress, Or, use something like bitadress.org to create a paper wallet, and they will make a set of adresses for you. ( Always make sure you're disconnected from the internet before generating!) – Rutger Versteegden Nov 29 '17 at 19:18
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    There's been some answers here which had links to tools you could use client side / offline, but i can't find them right now. Something like this should work aswell -> https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/49544/is-there-a-tool-to-produce-addresses-given-a-master-public-key – Rutger Versteegden Nov 29 '17 at 19:21
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    @UserX bitaddress.org gives you the private key and the associated receiving address (not the public key). – Highly Irregular Nov 30 '17 at 08:51