Bitcoin Forum

Can someone tell me why this disclaimer? I can not figure out why reusing addresses might not be safe.

Moreover, if indeed it was not sure, I think there would be a design problem in the protocol.

Eg. it's hard to imagine a future in which my employer can pay me in bitcoin and I must tell him a new address for the salary every month!

Well, probably in an hypothetical future like this there will be the chance to set up a monthly automated payment request to my employer.

Do you think the disclaimer can be interpreted in this way?

Finally, services that are based on a payout address to redistribute any wealth generated how they should adapt?

Thanks ;-)

My lay understanding address reuse is not great for two reasons:
1. Privacy/anonymity gets degraded with address reuse as people may be able to start to figure out who you are based on linked transactions.
2. I understand it reduces security slightly as soon as you spend from an address the public key becomes available.  Now *if* (big if) the public/private key relationship is compromised any public key is compromised.  So if you reuse an address this is then exploitable.  Because if you've never spent from an address the public key is protected behind a hash.

So in practice mainly 1 but 2 might be problematic in future if a hole is discovered in the cryptography linking public and private keys.

You mean, when you click File -> Receiving Addresses your old addresses aren't listed?

Go to "Receive", click "Reuse an existing receiving address (not recommended)", then click "Request payment". Your list of addresses will be there.

Yes, you can.