<p>An individual or merchant requesting payment will generally want to obtain a bitcoin address specific for that transaction.  When done manually, this is obtained from the Bitcoin-Qt client by clicking "Receive".  A merchant would have software that would query the Bitcoin.org client to obtain the address. An EWallet provider will provide for you this address.</p>

<p>The concept you possibly are misunderstanding is like how with a bank account, the account is assigned to an individual or organization before payment is transferred.</p>

<p>With Bitcoin, the client uses math to create the private key (and from that determine the Bitcoin address).  So there doesn't need to be some master registry where Bitcoin addresses are stored.  The person's client simply holds the keys necessary to spend any funds received by an address.</p>

<p>So that answers your second question -- bitcoin never really exist "in your account" but instead if you have the private key for an address, you can spend any funds received by that address.  Every node performs verification of your transaction and won't accept a transaction in which you try to spend funds that aren't yours.   Nodes that are mining will make these transactions permanent by including them in a sequence of data blocks -- which is named the blockchain.</p>

<p>So there are no people doing work, and instead there is simply an electronic communications protocol that is being employed.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-21T22:14:36.230Z
Thanks very much! For the first answer, does the bitcoin.org client obtain the address based on public key?
yang yang
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-21T22:23:11.603Z
As the blockchain grows, in order to verify the transaction, does node need to traverse the blockchain? If so, that's a hard work. Any optimization for it?
yang yang
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-22T05:01:18.277Z
The client makes up a random private key for you.  From that it can calculate the public key, and from the public key it can calculate the address.  There is no central body to make sure that 2 people don't make up the same private key, but private keys are so long that it is incredibly unlikely that it will even happen.
Chris Moore
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-22T05:02:15.047Z
Your comment about optimisations should really be asked as a separate question.  It may already have been asked as its own question.  In short, "yes", and "not yet, but it's being worked on".
Chris Moore
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-10-21T21:23:43.793Z
2012-10-21T21:23:43.793Z
Stephen Gornick
<p>If i want to send money, Who gives the payment address. You know, it is said there are no center. 
Another question is that if someone send money to me, who help me  put the money into my account? </p>

<receiving><sending>
what's the principle of sending money and receiving money? who do the work to put money into account？
yang yang
# what's the principle of sending money and receiving money? who do the work to put money into account？

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-10-21)

If i want to send money, Who gives the payment address. You know, it is said there are no center.
Another question is that if someone send money to me, who help me put the money into my account?

**Tags:** receiving, sending


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2012-10-21. Score: 2

An individual or merchant requesting payment will generally want to obtain a bitcoin address specific for that transaction. When done manually, this is obtained from the Bitcoin-Qt client by clicking "Receive". A merchant would have software that would query the Bitcoin.org client to obtain the address. An EWallet provider will provide for you this address.

The concept you possibly are misunderstanding is like how with a bank account, the account is assigned to an individual or organization before payment is transferred.

With Bitcoin, the client uses math to create the private key (and from that determine the Bitcoin address). So there doesn't need to be some master registry where Bitcoin addresses are stored. The person's client simply holds the keys necessary to spend any funds received by an address.

So that answers your second question -- bitcoin never really exist "in your account" but instead if you have the private key for an address, you can spend any funds received by that address. Every node performs verification of your transaction and won't accept a transaction in which you try to spend funds that aren't yours. Nodes that are mining will make these transactions permanent by including them in a sequence of data blocks -- which is named the blockchain.

So there are no people doing work, and instead there is simply an electronic communications protocol that is being employed.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks very much! For the first answer, does the bitcoin.org client obtain the address based on public key?  
> **username_0**: As the blockchain grows, in order to verify the transaction, does node need to traverse the blockchain? If so, that's a hard work. Any optimization for it?  
> **username_2**: The client makes up a random private key for you.  From that it can calculate the public key, and from the public key it can calculate the address.  There is no central body to make sure that 2 people don't make up the same private key, but private keys are so long that it is incredibly unlikely that it will even happen.  
> **username_2**: Your comment about optimisations should really be asked as a separate question.  It may already have been asked as its own question.  In short, "yes", and "not yet, but it's being worked on".  

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