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I am currently getting started into developing involving Ethereum. I know what the function w3.eth.account.create() does and returns but I am unsure what happens behind the scenes.

Specifically, does the function store anything on the computer?

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This will create a pair of a public and private key. The created object also contains functions to sign transactions and messages using the key pair. This does not store anything on the computer, contrary to web3.eth.personal.newAccount which will store a keyfile on the computer, with the information of the private key, encrypted and secured with a password.

Hope this helps

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  • Thanks for clarifying, with regards to the keyfile, can you access it to retrieve the private key and password?
    – Ethlearner
    Commented Jun 25, 2018 at 8:39
  • The password is set by you so you know it, the private key can be extracted with that password, see here
    – Jaime
    Commented Jun 25, 2018 at 8:50

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