Glossary

This page will be a quick lookup to clarify the jargon used in the industry. In my experience, I have often noticed that people already know a concept but they do not have the right word to encapsulate that or they use an alternative term and are therefore clueless as to what this *new* term means. This is the reason for this page to exist.

B

1. Base Field

For the secp256k1 curve, the base field p is

p = 115792089237316195423570985008687907853269984665640564039457584007908834671663

The base field of an elliptic curve is the field over which the curve is defined. The base field size thereby defines the number of elements of the finite field.

S

1. Scalar Field

For the secp256k1 curve, the scalar field n is:

n = 115792089237316195423570985008687907852837564279074904382605163141518161494337

The scalar field is the field of scalars used in the operations performed on the curve, such as point addition, scalar multiplication and pairings

Refer to the explanation of Base field for initial context.