RIPEMD-160 has a 160-bit or 20-byte hash value while SHA-256 has a 256-bit or 32-byte. So RIPEMD-160 is used for it's shorter hash. However, SHA-1 also produces a 160-bit hash. RIPEMD-160 is a less popular algorithm but in fact achieves exactly the same as SHA-1 does.

RIPEMD was used because it produces the shortest hashes whose uniqueness is still sufficiently assured. This allows Bitcoin addresses to be shorter. SHA256 is used as well because Bitcoin's use of a hash of a public key might create unique weaknesses due to unexpected interactions between RIPEMD and ECDSA (the public key signature algorithm).

Apr 26, 2018 · But an additional RIPEMD does protect against possible weakness in SHA256 since addresses are hashed with SHA256 and RIPEMD160. – Jonas Schnelli Commented Apr 27, 2018 at 20:10

Dec 9, 2017 · I came to know that for generating addresses Bitcoin uses RIPEMD-160(SHA-256). But most of the Bitcoin Addresses are 25 to 34 Bytes(characters) long & starts with 1 or 3. How is this possible? Is there any underlying Encryption algorithm is there along with Hashing functions like RIPEMD & SHA?

Aug 20, 2021 · Why was the RIPEMD-160 hash algorithms chosen before SHA-1? 1 Can a brainwallet passphrase be derived if an attacker has obtained the private keys of an empty wallet.dat file?

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Oct 6, 2011 · To be precise, you'd have to find a private key whose corresponding public key's SHA-256 hash itself hashes to the same RIPEMD-160 hash. While weaknesses in RIPEMD-160 could bear on this, the interaction with ECDSA and SHA256 would mean that you would need to show RIPEMD-160 to be very weak for this attack to work. For example, if Bitcoin used ...

Feb 10, 2019 · This is in form hash160, which is RIPEMD-160 (SHA-256 (Public Key)). Step 1: Break RIPEMD-160 to get the SHA-256 hash. Step 2: Break SHA-256 to get the public key. (You could also get this public key once it's published when that key is used to spend. Of course, at that point it may not help you.)

Mar 26, 2013 · Bitcoin uses SHA256 followed by RIPEMD-160, which I'll collectively call HASH160. Good hashes have 4 properties: it is easy to compute the hash value for any given message ; it is infeasible to generate a message that has a given hash; it is infeasible to modify a message without changing the hash