Bitcoin Forum

hi everyone,

just wondering is it wise to use a wallet that the public key is visable on the block chain?

I have been using the same wallet for receiving/sending bitcoins and also to store my bitcoins, I do however have mywallet encrypted,

should i be moving my bitcoins to a new wallet everytime i send a bitcoin out of it? from what I gather the public key is only shown in the block explorer when you send anything out of your wallet, but my question is with the public key now visable on the block explorer, does that leave my wallet open for any sort of attacks etc, or is it still secured.

would seem to me that it would be a right pain to have to clear out my wallet to a new one everytime i send anything out of it.

cheers

There's nothing wrong with re-using a public address if you are not interested in privacy. Your private keys are never exposed unless you publish them by some outside means.

Not to worry - everyone's public addresses are visible to all, once they've been used.  It's the private keys that allow sending coins.

Public keys do not have to be hidden at all.  That is why they are called 'public.'  As long as the account's keypair is generated and stored in a secure way, it is not risky at all to leave your public key out in the open.  Anyway, any address with bitcoins in it is already public  (visible in the blockchain) regardless of whether any coins have been sent from it yet or not.

Displaying that address in public could lead to people sending money to it. That's not so bad.  ;D
It is your private keys that allow spending. Your good.

Firstly understand that a BTC "address" is *not* a public key - it is a RIPEMD hash of one (with a trailing checksum).

Your public key is revealed when you "spend" funds that were previously sent to one of your "addresses". Although this doesn't disclose your private key if the ECDSA algo that Bitcoin uses was to become "compromised" then any funds sent to addresses from which you've spent could also become unsafe.

So it is not recommended to re-use addresses (or if you do then sweep the funds to another address as quickly as you can).

thanks for the replies,

@ CIYAM Open this is what I was concerned about, so does this mean I need to create a new wallet? or can I just create a new address within the open wallet and send to the new address I have created? or will I need to create a new wallet altogether and send them to it.

thanks

Best idea is just to create a new address any time that you are going to accept funds.

The bitcoin-qt wallet will automatically send "change" to new addresses so unless the client you're using doesn't do the same then you shouldn't have any other troubles.

You can also just send your entire wallet balance (minus tx fee) to a new address that you create if you are at all worried about previous addresses.

thanks I got it i think  ;D

create new address in the open wallet in bitcoin-qt, send all the funds to the new address i created, then for future i create a new receiving address for incoming transaction, this way i will never have the public key revealed for my stored bitcoins,

thanks

You got it!

thanks very much  8)

quick update from me,

ok so I created a new receiving address in my open wallet, and i sent my balance of my wallet to it,I also added to 0.0005 fee,

I got a popup in the taskbar saying payment to self.

my balance is still showing what is was, minus the fee, but in the transaction list i have a n/a and 0 confirms,

checking the new address i created in block explorer does not show any funds,

have i done it wrong?

***edit**** its gone through, just took little while, phew haha, sending large amounts of savings is heart pumping, off to the vault the wallet goes :D



just checked my old address in block explorer, and the balance is still in it, minus the tx fees,

i must have done this wrong?

It just takes some time (generally not more than 10 minutes).

Your right. Everything went smooth. Funds in new address. Off to the vault tomorrow. Thanks for your help