Within the context of Pub = Priv * G, what is Pub if Priv is zero? It looks to be undefined to me.
Elliptic curves form a group under point addition. As such they have an additive identity, which is the point at infinity. 0 * G is the identity of this group.
Thanks! ([re]learn something new every day)
So I corrected my post above and have a new question/comment regarding these posts:
So if the private key 0 give us the Zero point on the curve Zero = 0 * G then 16QaFeudRUt8NYy2yzjm3BMvG4xBbAsBFM is just the Bitcoin address calculated from the Zero point.
BUT, there are many other valid points that will hash to the same address, therefore:
so basically there are ripemd Hashes with no corresponding private key?
So the probabilty of an addres collision is greater than the often cited 1/2^160?
Is there any information about how many hashes have no corresponding private keys?
is not true. Besides the private key 0 there are many other valid private keys that will produce the address 16QaFeudRUt8NYy2yzjm3BMvG4xBbAsBFM, right?