Crypto Core Education

What does an Ethereum address look like and how is it formed?

An Ethereum address is a 42-character string that starts with 0x followed by 40 hexadecimal characters, such as 0x71C7656EC7ab88b098defB751B7401B5f6d8976F. It is derived from a public key: the key is hashed with Keccak-256, and the last 20 bytes of that hash become the address. The same format identifies both wallets and smart contracts. Capitalization in the hex characters encodes an optional checksum that helps catch typos before you send funds. The format is a technical standard used across the Ethereum network.