Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Bitcoin Technical Support => Topic started by: TheBitMan on July 05, 2011, 05:34:02 PM



Title: Bitcoin Address Always Changing...
Post by: TheBitMan on July 05, 2011, 05:34:02 PM
I have several addresses and I never hit the "new" button on the client. I am planning on opening some merchant services and I can't have it changing like this all the time. Will it still send to my old addresses??


Title: Re: Bitcoin Address Always Changing...
Post by: flower1024 on July 05, 2011, 05:43:02 PM
yes,
if you open your adress book you'll see all of your sending and recipient adresses.

you will get all money sent to old adresses. its one of the anonymity functions of bitcoin.

inside of your adressbook you can always choose your current adress


Title: Re: Bitcoin Address Always Changing...
Post by: joepie91 on July 05, 2011, 06:03:06 PM
I have several addresses and I never hit the "new" button on the client. I am planning on opening some merchant services and I can't have it changing like this all the time. Will it still send to my old addresses??
The client automatically generates a new address when you receive a payment on your 'old' address - this is to promote the use of a new address for every transaction.

All your old addresses are still in your wallet and will still 'receive' bitcoins sent to them.


Title: Re: Bitcoin Address Always Changing...
Post by: TheBitMan on July 05, 2011, 06:03:53 PM
Thanks ;D


Title: Re: Bitcoin Address Always Changing...
Post by: Tronlet on July 05, 2011, 06:36:33 PM
Your backup of your wallet.dat only contains 100 of these keys in reserve, though. After you generate about 80 keys, make sure to update your backup.

That is, your client has already generated 100 keys for you, and is keeping them hidden. Otherwise, your backup would need to be updated every time a new key was generated, because the backup won't be able to connect to those new keys unless it has them in its file. Whenever you generate a "new" address, it's actually taking an address from the 100-key stockpile, and then generating a new hidden address to add to that stockpile.