What’s the major difference between adresss and public key?

[BitMaxz]

Your explanation is more clearly and understandable but if you can show examples of all the differences, it will be better to understand the difference with screenshots and explanations. This is benefiting most of us here. Because I was also thinking that the address I displayed in this forum or the one I use in receiving coins is the address and I don't know where I can get the public key. For more understanding, expand it for us.

Actually, both of them are public keys; the standard one is the shortened version of the public key.

The public key is not widely used; you need to use the standard BTC address. Don't focus too much on long public keys unless you need them for something; they're supposed to not be shared with anyone. 

If you want some more explanation about this, the link is already shared above, or go here: https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/keys/public-key/hash/

[Churchillvv]

This topic has been discussed a lot in the past and you may be able to get your answers from that thread.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5499462.msg64193874#msg64193874

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5350111.msg57499874#msg57499874

I know this questions have been asked many times but if this is a genuine newbie, then allow him or her to express himself.

i guess moderator must have seen this and didn't delete it!! it has been a long time i saw a newbie ask this kind of question and personally i love real human discussion rather than those AI topics.
the catch: just allow the question of the op is genuine in due time he will learn form the correct sources you and others referenced.

[coinlary]

Your explanation is more clearly and understandable but if you can show examples of all the differences, it will be better to understand the difference with screenshots and explanations. This is benefiting most of us here. Because I was also thinking that the address I displayed in this forum or the one I use in receiving coins is the address and I don't know where I can get the public key. For more understanding, expand it for us.]

There's no other address differet to the one you receive sats on, only the type of script can differ.

Use the link that Cricktor posted learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/script, go through the entire scripts, it covers enough including graphical data and tools that you can also use for testing out  what was explained on a script page.

The easiest way you can use to access your public key is to use a wallet that can derive it from your private key and display it to you.

Try Electrum, visit the address tab and double-click an address you should be able to access and copy its pub. key.
Apparently, the pub. key of an address of any script type is usually visible once you spend from it(some are visible before), and you can see that by visiting any transaction on any block explorer.

You can't be spoon-fed everything, you need to actually do alot of research your self and ask questions if you want to understand it better

[khaled0111]

As I've expected. This thread has been here for more than ten days and op got all the answers he was looking for, from the first comments. But for some reason, some members like to bump this thread (and the like) for no reason. Maybe, they just want to increase their post count!

[satscraper]

The simplest definition is that a Bitcoin address is a hashed version of a public key (which can be shared safely) whereas the public key itself is a cryptographic key generated from the private key.

It doesn't hold for all types of Bitcoin addresses. For example, both Taproot and multisig addresses are no longer part of the group ^{their calculations are a bit different}.

I would suggest the simplest way for people who aren't technically savvy to think of Bitcoin address as the smart tag to their public key, with the tag depending on the type of wallet they use.

[Perfectbaby]

As I've expected. This thread has been here for more than ten days and op got all the answers he was looking for, from the first comments. But for some reason, some members like to bump this thread (and the like) for no reason. Maybe, they just want to increase their post count!

I think the reason why is not locked now is for the purpose of other newbies to read through because if this thread is locked it wouldn’t appear on the first page like this, and you know another newbie could likely asked same question over and over again.
As I know there are some questions that are being asked here that are already existing because they were locked and those questions automatically moved down and some of them are to lazy to make simple search before asking questions.

[9ja Amaka]

This thread should be locked by now. Not only has this question been asked and answered in separate threads created before now, but this topic has received the answer it needed. The OP has nothing left to learn. Leaving it open will accommodate spam and unnecessary discussion.

[Mia Chloe]

With modern wallets, you have a master private key that generates other private keys for each individual address and the master public key which generates other public keys that hashes their individual addresses. Using just the master public key, you'll be able to only watch the addresses generated from it and create raw transaction files, but cannot sign transactions.
Anytime you spend from an address the public key is exposed, but if you have never spent from it, it stays "private".

Just to add to this quantum attacks claim to be kinda backwards compatible. However as for the master public keys, it's the best alternative to use if you are looking to have a watch only wallet.

If you make use of just a single wallet address if you make a transaction since the funds gets split to the change addresses you'll end up with an empty balance on your watch only wallet end. Also you can isolate an address with the child key of the address only too.