<p>All coins use ECDSA to sign transactions in a similar manner, the main difference between most coins is what would constitute a valid signature, typically the first character(s) of a public address (e.g. bitcoin starts with 1 or 3 and litecoin starts with L). Therefore a certain public key could not be used directly to sign a transaction of another coin, with exception to coins such as devcoin, which uses the same address type.</p>

<p>You could write a program which starting from a certain private key, auto-increments until a valid address is found.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-31T19:00:11.680Z
Also, you can check out vanitygen https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen for more info on generating addresses for specific coins :)
Mark
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-31T04:08:12.273Z
2014-03-31T04:08:12.273Z
Mark
<p>Yes it refs the public key and also a hash of the sig content, of which the sig hash is only partially included in the txn number</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-01T02:16:48.340Z
2014-03-01T02:16:48.340Z
user10268
<p>I am wondering whether signatures for Bitcoin-like currencies are currency specific, or given one program that can sign a Bitcoin raw/JSON transaction one can create valid signatures for other coins as well?</p>

<p>That is to say, if a program takes:</p>

<ul>
<li>A private key</li>
<li>A pre-contructed raw / JSON transaction</li>
</ul>

<p>Is the signing process requiring something specific to a given currency, like referencing an address in a different form or using some currency-specific bytes?</p>

<transactions><altcoin><signature>
Are Bitcoin signatures currency specific?
ThePiachu
# Are Bitcoin signatures currency specific?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-02-28)

I am wondering whether signatures for Bitcoin-like currencies are currency specific, or given one program that can sign a Bitcoin raw/JSON transaction one can create valid signatures for other coins as well?

That is to say, if a program takes:

* A private key
* A pre-contructed raw / JSON transaction

Is the signing process requiring something specific to a given currency, like referencing an address in a different form or using some currency-specific bytes?

**Tags:** transactions, altcoin, signature


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-03-31. Score: 1

All coins use ECDSA to sign transactions in a similar manner, the main difference between most coins is what would constitute a valid signature, typically the first character(s) of a public address (e.g. bitcoin starts with 1 or 3 and litecoin starts with L). Therefore a certain public key could not be used directly to sign a transaction of another coin, with exception to coins such as devcoin, which uses the same address type.

You could write a program which starting from a certain private key, auto-increments until a valid address is found.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Also, you can check out vanitygen https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen for more info on generating addresses for specific coins :)  

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### Answer by username_2 on 2014-03-01. Score: 0

Yes it refs the public key and also a hash of the sig content, of which the sig hash is only partially included in the txn number


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