1. Dimensional Breakdown Across Encodings
• Raw Binary: Exactly 256 bits (zeros and ones).
• Byte Array: Exactly 32 bytes (`Uint8Array(32)`).
• Hexadecimal Representation: Exactly 64 characters (each byte is 2 hex nibbles `0-9, a-f`).
• Base64 Representation: Exactly 44 characters (including trailing `=` padding).
• Base58 (Bitcoin style): Typically 43-44 characters without ambiguous characters (0, O, I, l).
2. Database Storage Optimization
When storing millions of SHA-256 hashes in a relational database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite):
• Storing as `VARCHAR(64)` uses 64 bytes of disk storage per row.
• Storing as raw binary `BINARY(32)` or `BYTEA` uses exactly 32 bytes per row—reducing B-Tree index size and RAM caching overhead by 50%.