Whats the public key required for in a transaction?

2

In figure 1 of the original paper by satoshi, why include the public key of the next owner in the hash?

TMOTTM

Posted 2016-01-28T20:37:59.600

Reputation: 123

Answers

2

The public key belongs to, and identifies, the recipient of the funds. Without it, the network doesn't know who the money goes to, and the rightful owner can't use it.

Meni Rosenfeld

Posted 2016-01-28T20:37:59.600

Reputation: 18 542

Ok, but is that so to speak the same thing like the address of the recipient? – TMOTTM – 2016-01-28T22:27:57.127

@TMOTTM: Almost. Technically, a Bitcoin address is a Base58-encoded hash of the public key. These days outputs don't specify the actual public key but only the hash. This was only developed some time after Satoshi published the original whitepaper. – Meni Rosenfeld – 2016-01-28T23:07:54.533

Asked: 2016-01-28T20:37:59.600

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