Creating keys and addresses

A quick look at addresses

https://cips.cardano.org/cips/cip19/

Create a directory for your keys:

mkdir -p keys
cd keys

Generating a payment key pair and an address

To generate a key pair, run:

cardano-cli address key-gen \
--verification-key-file payment.vkey \
--signing-key-file payment.skey

Building an address

Generate a type 6 address, the associated stake of which cannot be delegated:

cardano-cli address build \
--payment-verification-key-file payment.vkey \
--out-file payment.addr \
--testnet-magic 2

Installing cardano-address

Just for fun, let's install cardano-address

Releases · input-output-hk/cardano-addressesGitHub

Go to the previously created src directory:

wget https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-addresses/releases/download/3.12.0/cardano-addresses-3.12.0-linux64.tar.gz

tar -xf cardano-addresses-3.12.0-linux64.tar.gz

chmod +x bin/cardano-address

mv bin/cardano-address ~/.local/bin/

You can use cardano-address to inspect the address. Back to the keys directory

cat payment.addr | cardano-address address inspect

you should see something like:

{
    "stake_reference": "none",
    "spending_key_hash_bech32": "addr_vkh1tc0da5jwszr8f875jcpdmx3lmfgfcuxxvexggufyvmnhg3r5p2x",
    "address_style": "Shelley",
    "spending_key_hash": "5e1eded24e8086749fd49602dd9a3fda509c70c6664c84712466e774",
    "network_tag": 0,
    "address_type": 6
}

Now, you can get some funds from the faucet:

Testnets faucet

Querying the address balance

If successful, you can use cardano-cli to verify that you have received the funds:

cardano-cli query utxo --address $(cat payment.addr) --testnet-magic 2

cardanoscan.io will also show the transaction:

PreProd Cardanoscan - Cardano Explorer

Generating a stake key pair and a type 0 address

cardano-cli stake-address key-gen \
--verification-key-file stake.vkey \
--signing-key-file stake.skey

cardano-cli address build \
--payment-verification-key-file payment.vkey \
--stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
--out-file paymentwithstake.addr \
--testnet-magic 2

cat paymentwithstake.addr | cardano-address address inspect

You should see something like this:

{
    "stake_reference": "by value",
    "stake_key_hash_bech32": "stake_vkh1kevs5lhejnxy3j6dnq8wsh6k66e6yn8atev5e3jy7asajygx8zx",
    "stake_key_hash": "b6590a7ef994cc48cb4d980ee85f56d6b3a24cfd5e594cc644f761d9",
    "spending_key_hash_bech32": "addr_vkh1tc0da5jwszr8f875jcpdmx3lmfgfcuxxvexggufyvmnhg3r5p2x",
    "address_style": "Shelley",
    "spending_key_hash": "5e1eded24e8086749fd49602dd9a3fda509c70c6664c84712466e774",
    "network_tag": 0,
    "address_type": 0
}