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README.md

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+# uuid-base58
+
+## Overview
+
+`uuid-base58` is a small package to generate short [BASE58-string](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Base58Check_encoding) representation of `UUID` and vice versa.
+
+## Example
+
+```go
+package main
+
+import (
+	"fmt"
+	uuid58 "github.com/AlexanderMatveev/go-uuid-base58"
+	"github.com/google/uuid"
+)
+
+func main() {
+	// base58 from UUID
+	s, _ := uuid58.ToBase58(uuid.MustParse("c73087da-627a-4f00-8786-fcc4f47db57f"))
+	fmt.Println(s) // RbcZUzUfnGugha7DVu3fAE
+
+	// UUID from base58
+	u, _ := uuid58.FromBase58("RbcZUzUfnGugha7DVu3fAE")
+	fmt.Println(u) // c73087da-627a-4f00-8786-fcc4f47db57f
+}
+
+```
+
+## Motivation
+
+The original Bitcoin client source code explains the reasoning behind base58 encoding:
+
+**base58.h:**
+
+```
+// Why base-58 instead of standard base-64 encoding?
+// - Don't want 0OIl characters that look the same in some fonts and
+//      could be used to create visually identical looking account numbers.
+// - A string with non-alphanumeric characters is not as easily accepted as an account number.
+// - E-mail usually won't line-break if there's no punctuation to break at.
+// - Doubleclicking selects the whole number as one word if it's all alphanumeric.
+```