user59572: I know that a public key can be compressed. However, a public key and its compressed one have the same private key. Then why do we need two different Wallet import formats for each compressed and uncompressed one?

user71255: Wallet software needs to know whether to search the blockchain for an address generated from a compressed public key or not. The encoding of the private key signals which type should be searched for.

59572: <p>I know that a public key can be <em>compressed</em>. However, a public key and its <em>compressed</em> one <strong>have the same private key.</strong> Then why do we need two different <em>Wallet import formats</em> for each <em>compressed</em> and <em>uncompressed</em> one?</p>
 71255: <p>Wallet software needs to know whether to search the blockchain for an address generated from a compressed public key or not. The encoding of the private key signals which type should be searched for.</p>
