- participants have pairs of keys also called keypairs
- secret key + public key
encryption:
- encrypted using the public key
- can only be decrypted using the private key
- eg.
- outsiders can encrypt a message for me using soulninja.eth address
- only i can decrypt the message using my private key
signatures:
- encrypted with secret key
- can be proved it was signed with my private key by verifying using my public key
- eg.
- i can sign a message to the world using my private key
- others can verify that it was me by using my public key to verify it