Bitcoin Forum

Hello I'm newbie. I just curious if someone can open my wallet by known my address?

It's safe to post address like this one 172jHZ1o61FUKb2uo1xs231HdV43qBWaKf


Please tell me the risk by posting address

If it's your public address, then no - someone can't open a wallet. They would need the private keys which hold your bitcoins.  Never give out your private keys are any seeds.

You have to know the differents between public adress and private key, this second one is PRIVATE which means that if someone has it they could open your wallet, first one is PUBLIC so it is for everyone.

No unless you provided in public your private key.

Everyone can see your balance and transactions https://blockchain.info/address/172jHZ1o61FUKb2uo1xs231HdV43qBWaKf (https://blockchain.info/address/172jHZ1o61FUKb2uo1xs231HdV43qBWaKf) but no one can manage a wallet without your private key.
The private key can be break open but it takes so much energy that hacker have to burn several solar systems

^^^^^^  This.  It would take an insane number of years in order to brute force the private key.  It's like generating a custom wallet address, getting the first 4-5 characters can take just a few hours, getting a full wallet address is like hundreds, thousands, or millions of years hashing at current hardware limits.  I don't think people are going to wait around that long ;)

How it can be possible? You are saying that you are a Newbie, but in fact you are a Full member on this forum and you created your account during the last year.
 

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Uhmm this is very suspicious, if you were a full member you should know that, because everybody knows that if you click on your wallet you are going to be able to see your balance.

But there is nothing wrong about seeing the balance, because you can not do anything about it, it is just like a "public record" If you want to have more privacy, then start using multi-signature wallets.

Maybe this member has been taking part in discussions for 1 year, but have never got business with wallet? It can be possible, really. Or this user bought profile to take part in ICO bounty)

First of all, yes it's safe to post your public BTC address anywhere you want, nobody will "ever" know who you are or won't have access to your coins.
But i just wanted to say that what i have heard usually called a Wallet is a software containing your private keys, not every single address.

no there is no risk , than if you have a private key you must store it at a save place .

There is no harm in posting your address publicly but in that case, if you are declaring that the address is owned by you then everyone will know how much Bitcoins you are holding (including the government officials).

But when it comes to this forum, posting your Bitcoin address (where you hold the private keys and can sign a message) is helpful for the security of your account and in case of any unauthorised access, you can contact forum staff using the signed message of through this address and recover your account.

What about hacker or tracker that directly search for the public wallet address and locate your private address? Sorry noob question  :-\

Without the private key it is impossible.

First thing first, is it your desktop wallet or web-based wallet or what? If it is a desktop-wallet then its private and public keys must be with you. Hopefully these keys are encrypted. Then only way to open your wallet is use correct passphrase along with those keys. If private key is missing then say bye bye to your coins. No way to recover it.
If your wallet is third-party web-based then contact the customer care of your wallet-holding company. In these kind of scenarios, the private keys are with the company hosting the wallet.
About the posting address in public, it is tentatively safe. It is not possible to decrypt your wallet just by seeing its public address. So far you are safe in posting it on forum.

Not impossible for the moment, but who knows)

If he got access to the private key, then is possible for him to open it.

No, your private key is the most important and gives access to your wallet. Never give this out to anyone! People have made this mistake in the past and have been robbed clean!

don't take tension, provided you don't give out your private key, your account is safe.

it's just like some having your house address without your gate key

The answer as was mentioned previously is NO, that's your public address but please before going any further with bitcoin read the sticky thread in this section (second one and the others of course) it explains everything about wallet, public and private address, hot and cold storage, that way you won't do the mistake of giving up anything sensitive.

I was also wondering the same thing. Some people told me it won't ,but i want to make sure.

Please tell me someone.

For me yes, it is possible to open it because every wallet is vulnerable to being hacked or lost but the safest wallet is one that you control the private key.

A bitcoin public address is the one you use to receive bitcoin, and a private address is the one you use to send them.
You can show a public address/key to anyone you like, but make sure to keep the private ones well hidden!!!
Public and private addresses are also known as “keys”. If someone asks for either your public address or public key, show them the one starting with “1” or “3”.
An address starting with “1” is a single-user address, whereas the “3” denotes a multi-signature (multisig) address. Multisig addresses can be held by more than one person, requiring more than one private key to release the funds.

This appears to be a public address so it is fine to publish this. All people can do with it is see your transactions coming in and going out. People can send Bitcoins to this address as well but no one can send Bitcoins out of it without your private key. You just need to secure that private key so no one else has it but also you need to make sure that you don’t lose it. If you lose it, there is no way to recover any Bitcoins in the address by you or anyone else.

Nobody are able to open your wallet until they know your private key, they only be able to see your transaction history. you just provide your public key or wallet address.
never give your private key to other people, in case you will get your funds stolen.

This is good information. Nice to learn. Thanks for sharing your question. Also thanks to all who give there ideas.

Your public address is for sending and receiving any type of coins.
You shouldn't worry advertising it.
Who knows, maybe you'll receive few coins by mistake  ;)

   

Not really, unused adresses do not yet have a public key associated with them, ( in most cases atleast), leaving you with both the private and public key to brute force to get into the wallet, ( which is virtually impossible, since you don't have a starting point Y to start the bruteforce from.



Note that even with the public key it still would cost an absurd amount to crack the private key, but it would/could theorethically be possible.

No! they cant open your wallet with just a public address unless they have your private key or login details if you are using an exchange wallet. Keep your private key at safe place

It is safe to post your "Public" address online. But remember to not post your "Private Keys" because they are the keys to your crypto funds.
The only risk by posting addresses like that is that others might get to know how rich you are, which you might not want everyone to know. A simole way is to use new address for each new transaction.

To be able to get access to coins just by knowing the public address would require insane amount of computing power, which is not available currently, to be able to crack before the universe dies !

Yes it's safe, just don't share your private key. Locking this thread to prevent spam.