Binary to Hex Key Conversion

TL;DR

This guide shows you how to convert a binary private key into its hexadecimal representation. This is often needed when working with cryptography and different software tools.

Converting Binary to Hexadecimal

1. Understand the Basics: Binary uses 0s and 1s. Hexadecimal (often shortened to ‘hex’) uses 0-9 and A-F (where A=10, B=11, …, F=15). Each hex digit represents four binary digits.

2. Group the Binary Digits: Take your binary private key and split it into groups of four digits, starting from the rightmost digit. If the leftmost group has fewer than four digits, add leading zeros to make it four.

   Binary Key: 1011001110100101
   Grouped: 0001 0110 0111 0100 1010 0101

3. Convert Each Group to Hexadecimal: Convert each four-digit binary group into its equivalent hex digit.
   • 0000 = 0
   • 0001 = 1
   • 0010 = 2
   • 0011 = 3
   • 0100 = 4
   • 0101 = 5
   • 0110 = 6
   • 0111 = 7
   • 1000 = 8
   • 1001 = 9
   • 1010 = A
   • 1011 = B
   • 1100 = C
   • 1101 = D
   • 1110 = E
   • 1111 = F

   Grouped Binary: 0001 0110 0111 0100 1010 0101
   Hexadecimal:     1    6    7    4    A    5

4. Combine the Hex Digits: Join all the hex digits together to form your hexadecimal private key.

   Final Hex Key: 1674A5

5. Using Python (Example): You can automate this process with a simple Python script:

   def binary_to_hex(binary_string):
     hex_string = hex(int(binary_string, 2))[2:].upper()
     return hex_string
   
   binary_key = "1011001110100101"
   hex_key = binary_to_hex(binary_key)
   print(hex_key) # Output: 1674A5

6. Using Online Converters: Several websites can convert binary to hex. Search for “binary to hexadecimal converter” on your preferred search engine.