base58 Encodings

XRP Ledger APIs often use a "base58" encoding with a checksum (sometimes called "Base58Check") to represent account addresses and other types of values related to cryptographic keys. This encoding is the same as the one used for Bitcoin addresses, except that the XRP Ledger uses the following dictionary: rpshnaf39wBUDNEGHJKLM4PQRST7VWXYZ2bcdeCg65jkm8oFqi1tuvAxyz.

The XRP Ledger prefixes different types of values with a specific 8-bit number before encoding them to distinguish between different data types. With the arrangement of characters in the XRP Ledger's base58 dictionary, the result is that the base58 representations for different types of encoded values start with specific letters by type.

The following table lists all the encodings the XRP Ledger uses:

Data Type	Starts With	Type Prefix	Content size¹	Maximum characters
Account address	r	`0x00`	20 bytes	35
Account public key	a	`0x23`	33 bytes	53
Seed value (for secret keys)	s	`0x21`	16 bytes	29
Validation public key or node public key	n	`0x1C`	33 bytes	53

¹ Content size excludes the 1-byte type prefix.