stage 03 · key: The wallet signs
The public key is the address you hand out. The private key is the pen only you hold. No honest site asks for the pen.
- key
- signature
- scam
Every wallet has two keys. That's not a figure of speech: they're two numbers, linked to each other, with different jobs.
The comparison that settles it
The public key is your address: it can circulate, that's what it's for. The private key is the pen that signs in your name. Whoever holds the pen moves the money.
Signing is proving it was you without showing the pen. On the other side, the signature is checked against the public address. Nobody needs to know your secret to trust the message.
What never changes
No site, support agent, tool or person needs your secret phrase — not even the twelve, eighteen or twenty-four words. That's not over-caution: it's the difference between a complaint and a total loss.
There's also no "recover the account". There's storing it properly.
And don't mix up the three layers: a local simulation is a rehearsal, a test network is a rehearsal with a technical audience, the main network is real money.
Mission
Write one sentence, in plain language, explaining to someone who has never seen crypto why the private key is never shared — not even with the site that looks official. If the sentence needs jargon, it isn't good yet.
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