Tutorial: How to sign/verify your Bitcoin/cryptocurrency address

Hi everyone! Today I am going to show you how to sign or verify your bitcoin cryptocurrency address. I will try to keep it as simple and short as possible so that even newbies will be able to follow. Please note that that sometimes techno geeks or developers call Bitcoin addresses as public keys.

Why sign or verify Bitcoin/Cryptocurrecy Addresses?

The reason you would want to sign or verify a bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency address is to confirm or claim ownership of a specific cryptocurrency address. This is specially important when you are participating in free cryptocurrency distributions, faucets or Airdrops which requires you to verify or claim ownership of your address.

What are the requirements?

1. Coinomi universal cryptocurrency wallet (For android).
2. Bluestack (if you are using PC/MAC).

If you want additional help on how to install Bluestack on your PC you may read it on their official guide.
If you need additional help on how to install Coinomi in Bluestack on your PC you might want to watch this video.
If you are running MAC you might want to checkout this steemit article on how to run Coinomi on MAC.

How to sign/verify your Bitcoin/crypto address?

Note: My pictures are all captured in my Android phone. Procedure for this should also be the same when using the bluestack since it is an andriod emulator.

1. Open your Coinomi wallet.
   

2. Once you open the coinomi app it will bring you to its main dashboard where it shows you an overview of all the cryptocurrencies wallets you have. If nothing appears you might not have added any coin yet. For a quick guide on how to setup and add Bitcoin wallet please watch this video.
   

3. Next is go the dashboard of the specific wallet you want to sign or verify. You can do this by tapping or clicking the logo of the crypto you want signed or verified as shown at the picture above. in this example we want to sign/verify the my bitcoin address so we choose Bitcoin (BTC). After selecting the cryptocurrency it would bring you to the crypto specific dasboard or BALANCE page which looks like this:
   

4. We need to get your Bitcoin address that we want to sign/verify. You can do this by tapping or clicking on the menu link labeled "RECEIVE" as shown on the picture above. Which will bring you to the bitcoin address page or RECEIVE page. This page shows you your BTC address and QR code. Just tap the two square boxes on the top right to copy the BTC address.
   

5. Once copied you can go back to the balance page by tapping or clicking on the "BALANCE" link located on the top right of the "RECEIVE" page. This brings you back to the BALANCE page where we will start singing/verifying the Bitcoin address. Once you are back at the Balance page please tap the 3 dots on the Top-right most corner of the page as shown below.
   

A drop down menu will pop out. Select "SIGN/VERIFY MESSAGE." As shown at the picture below:

After selecting SIGN/VERIFY MESSAGE This will bring you to the Sign/Verify Message page. which looks like these below:

Now we sign or verify a message. The first field is the "Singing Address" this is YOUR BTC address that we copied from the "RECEIVING" page. Just cut and paste it the your BTC address there. If you forgot to do this just scroll up and go back to procedure 4. After pasting the BTC address you need to input the "Message" to be signed/verified. This message is not any random message this should come from the person or site that is asking for signing or verification. This can be any random number they give or a specific message from the them. After pasting both your address and the message we then generate the "SIGNATURE" this is done by clicking or tapping on the sign button as shown above screenshot.

Now that you have the SIGNATURE you can send the signature to the one asking for signing or verification. You can think of the signature as a password or special code that validates your ownership of the aforementioned address. Congratulations you have just verified your Bitcoin Address!

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Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors

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