Keys and addresses terminology [duplicate]

Question

I am trying to understand the difference between these terms :

in the ethereum ecosystem, and who contains ( sort of one to many or one to one relationships between classes )

medvedev1088 · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-08 18:25:45Z

2

Private key - 256 random bits.
Public key - 512 bits derived from the private key using ECDSA algorithm.
Address / account - 160 last bits of the keccak hash of the public key.
Wallet - usually, software for managing accounts and interacting with the blockchain.

1 address normally¹ corresponds to 1 public key and 1 known private key. A wallet can contain multiple addresses.

¹ - as Lingmao Song noted in the comments, 1 address can correspond to multiple public keys and multiple private keys: Is each Ethereum address shared by (theoretically) 2 ** 96 private keys?. As lungj noted in the comments, addresses of contracts usually don't have known public/private keys: Where is the private key for a contract stored?

answered Mar 8, 2018 at 17:53

medvedev1088

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1

"Strictly" speaking, one address can correspond to multiple private keys, see ethereum.stackexchange.com/q/10055/20451
– Linmao Song
Mar 8, 2018 at 18:04
1

And, while we're strictly speaking, some addresses are used without private keys. ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/185/… . (also, multisig wallets straddle the line -- the address itself may have zero known keys, but are accessed using two or more private keys).
– lungj
Mar 8, 2018 at 18:12

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