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Accounts and Addresses

Overview​

Accounts in Conflux can be compared to "bank accounts", as they store CFX. Users can create and manage their accounts, deposit CFX, and send transactions. The account address is a unique string that identifies an account and is used to retrieve account information from the Conflux VM's huge table, which stores the account content and balance.

note

The account implementation, including the account content and address computing rule is slightly different in core space and espace.

Address​

Account addresses, like bank account numbers, identify accounts and can be examined on ConfluxScan. However, the address format differs between core space and espace. Core space uses the CIP-37 encoding scheme, while espace uses the same format as Ethereum.

Here are examples showing the address format in the 2 spaces:

// espace address
0x1e97870f263700f46aa00d967821199b9bc5a120
// Core Space Mainnet address
cfx:aatktb2te25ub7dmyag3p8bbdgr31vrbeackztm2rj
// Core Space Testnet address
cfxtest:aatktb2te25ub7dmyag3p8bbdgr31vrbeajcg9pwkc

Account Types​

There are two account types, the externally-owned account (EOA) and the contract account. The EOA is controlled by anyone with the private keys of the account, while the contract account is a smart contract deployed on the network, controlled by its code.

External Accounts and Public-private Key Pairs​

EOAs consist of a cryptographic pair of keys: a public and a private key. The private key, which is a 64 hexadecimal character string, is used to sign transactions and grants custody over the funds associated with the account. Public-key cryptography ensures that a transaction is not forged and that the sender can prove the authenticity of the transaction request. This protects against malicious actors broadcasting fake transactions.

Here is an example of private key:

c5eca1e5de819725cf7c6764f4bba7eea95549a40275b21eaff91554c59bef90

The public key is calculated from the private key by the Elliptic Curve Cryptography Algorithm:

0xa82d8039606ea598798ae1c995e2dbad90561d67ffa9555f96e0bc3dbc38c32aa1ede8ab17a137b8515b94b158b49a746c77abc432c2677cb0a6d3240be98872

An EOA's address is then computed from its public key:

// espace address, encoded in EIP-55 checksum format
0x7058Ce27AF14B05943B879E530Df642867dFcf57
// core space mainnet address (encoded in CIP-37 format)
cfx:aajfvxvhz6mna0md1b68mpg9puygt18tm6nynadnf6

Smart Contract Accounts​

Smart contracts also have addresses, and users can interact with them by sending transactions. The contract address is determined when the contract is deployed, and the computation rule differs between core space and espace.

Comparison of Different Account Types​

Similarities​

  • Both of them can accept, hold, and send CFX.
  • Both of them can interact with smart contracts in the network

Differences​

External Accounts​

  • Creating external accounts does not have costs, such as CFX or other resources
  • They can send transactions to others
  • Transactions between external accounts can only be CFX or token transactions

Smart Contracts​

  • Creating smart contracts does have costs, as it uses the network's storage and computational resources
  • Transactions can only be sent to other contracts as a response to a received transaction
  • Transactions sent from external accounts to contract accounts can trigger the smart contract's codes to perform many different operations, such as token transfers, creating new contracts, etc.