Access to the Original Works Wallet and the rest of the Original Works Network is secured through the use of the combination of public and private keys.
The public key can be thought of as being an individual’s card number, while the private key is the secret PIN/CVC code used to validate access. However, derivation from private to public is a one way function, meaning that although deriving a public key from a private key will always yield the same result, the reverse operation is nearly impossible.
Currently, the standard private key is a 256 bit hexadecimal number, which means there are 16^64 possible combinations. That is, about 115,792 followed by 73 zeros, or more than three times the amount of stars in the universe.
With the use of the private key, a user can digitally sign a transaction in order to enable transfers from their wallet to other participants on the Original Works Network.