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---
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summary: 'one of the two pairs of private and public cryptographic keys that each account has, with the *private* spend key used to spend any funds in the account'
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terms: ["spend-key", "spend-keys"]
---
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{% include disclaimer.html translated="no" translationOutdated="no" %}
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### The Basics
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One of the two pairs of private and public cryptographic keys that each
account has, with the *private* spend key used to spend any funds in the
account.
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### In-depth Information
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The *private* spend key is a 256-bit integer that is used to sign Monero
transactions. With the current deterministic key derivation method of the
official wallet, the private spend key is also an alternate representation
of the @mnemonic -seed. It can be used to derive all other account keys.