Why Bitcoin address are 25-34 bytes long when RIPEMD 160 & SHA-256 are only 20 bytes and 32 bytes long respectively?
Why Bitcoin address are 25-34 bytes long when RIPEMD 160 & SHA-256 are only 20 bytes and 32 bytes long respectively? (I'm new to Bitcoin & it's technology so correct me wherever u can) .Recently I was reading about Bitcoin and it's underlying technologies. I came to know that for generating addresses Bitcoin uses RIPEMD-160(SHA-256). But most of the Bitcoin Addresses are 25 to 34 Bytes(characters) long & starts with 1 or 3. How is this possible? Is there any underlying Encryption algorithm is there along with Hashing functions like RIPEMD & SHA? http://ift.tt/2AHenkD