# Base58 Coding

## Overview

[`Base58`](/api/Base58) is the alphabet behind Bitcoin addresses, IPFS CIDv0 hashes, and Solana
public keys — Base64 without the visually ambiguous characters (`0`, `O`, `I`, `l`). Ox converts
Base58 values to and from [`Hex`](/api/Hex), [`Bytes`](/api/Bytes), and plain strings.

## Recipes

### Encode & Decode Data

Round-trip a value with [`Base58.fromString`](/api/Base58/fromString) and
[`Base58.toString`](/api/Base58/toString).

```ts twoslash
import { Base58 } from 'ox'

const encoded = Base58.fromString('Hello World!')
// @log: '2NEpo7TZRRrLZSi2U'
const decoded = Base58.toString(encoded)
// @log: 'Hello World!'
```

### Bring Base58 Identifiers into Primitive Types

Use [`Base58.toHex`](/api/Base58/toHex) or [`Base58.toBytes`](/api/Base58/toBytes) to convert
external identifiers — a Solana public key, an IPFS CIDv0 hash — into the types the rest of Ox
operates on.

```ts twoslash
import { Base58 } from 'ox'

const hex = Base58.toHex('2NEpo7TZRRrLZSi2U') // [!code hl]
// @log: '0x48656c6c6f20576f726c6421'
```

Decoding preserves leading zero bytes (encoded as `1` characters), matching Bitcoin's address
conventions.

## Best Practices

### Expect Typed Errors from Untrusted Input

The decoder validates every character against the Base58 alphabet and throws
`Base58.InvalidCharacterError` on corruption. Wrap decoding of user-supplied identifiers and
surface the failure instead of propagating malformed bytes.

## See More

<Cards>
  <Card icon="lucide:binary" title="Base64 Coding" description="Encode payloads for data URLs and HTTP transport." to="/guides/data/base64" />

  <Card icon="lucide:hash" title="Work with Bytes & Hex" description="The primitive types every codec converts to and from." to="/guides/data/bytes-hex" />
</Cards>