Bitcoin Forum

Hi folks, newbie here. I'm looking for some advice please.

I really want to have a permanent public address that I use to receive Bitcoins. By this I mean that I use this address everywhere online (and on my business cards). Anyone who wants to can then check my name and address online and see what address is mine.

I've seen people talk about privacy issues but I don't really understand why. If there is a problem with doing this, is there anything else that I can do to mitigate the risks?

I've seen onename.io allow you to do this so I'm assuming that having one address that you publicly claim s yours can't be too much of a problem.

Thanks!

Its not a problem, it only allows everybody to see all  your transactions. Some doesnt like it but its entirely your choice.

I would split business, privat deals etc.

For business also use one address per customer. It's better for a clean structure and the customer can better comprehend if the payment arrived etc.

If you have nothing to hide and if this is just part of your business principle for transparency, then there is nothing wrong to list down your public address. For me, that is not an issue at all and in fact, I do share my address with people I know and don't know and even post it publicly in the forum here. If you compare to credit card and other payment services, those are even worse.

En, not really understand what you talk about.
A bitcoin address include a pair of public Key and private key which generated by a specific function.
The public Key is used to recieve money, and the private key used to spend the money.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I understand that an address involves both a public key and a private key. My question is really how risky is it to hand out business cards with one public key on it if I don't want to have all my transactions public. I'll be using the same business cards for maybe over a year.

I wouldn't want to spend lots of money on printing cards if I was just going to have to change that address in a month's time.

I could just use one address to receive payments/tips etc before immediately sending any bitcoins received immediately on to a different address that I control (e.g. in my case using Mycelium to ensure that every transaction is sent to a new address that I control within my HD wallet).  But does that not mean that it's easy to imply that those second addresses are also mine? I suppose that I could be spending that money with merchants etc but the reality is that with small amounts (tips etc), the chances are they're all going into another address that I control.


Great point, thanks.
It's more for personal use to be honest - having one address that is definitively mine that other people can rely on (I realise however that there might be risks from people hacking into my personal website if it displays my address and then any money gets directed by a changed QR code to a thief).

I just use an exchange and keep the same address, one that allows free withdraws - i know its a slight risk but never keep funds in their long.  You can withdraw to multiple addresses to split the funds up after.

As long as u r not involved in anything illegal, there is no reason to worry.

It's not anything to do with legality (or otherwise) in my case. It's really more to do with the fact that I don't want people snooping around and seeing how many transactions are going through that address. For example - say I'm trying to convince others to use Bitcoin; they then go off and take a look at that address but see that it's not being used often - that might undermine what I'm saying in some way about how useful it is (i.e. "is it really that useful? He's only had about $2.50 through that address in four months!").

Sure you can use one address only - but if you have problems with ec. police or goverment, than you can be easily linked to one address.
If you use multiple addresses and delete them after transaction, noone can link you with them.

Sorry if this is a stupid question - but how do you mean delete them after the transaction? I thought that transactions were permanently/publicly recorded on the blockchain - so an address can't be deleted?

Delete wallet from pc so if someone get access to you pc, they wont find it there.

You cant delete anything from blockchain tho.

Ah, I see, thanks. It's probably not workable in practice for me to do that as I'm looking to use one address that I can print on business cards etc

Oh... yea if you want to use it on bussiness cards, than it is not usable.
I was talking about personal safety :)

You obviously don't care much about privacy issues if you're wanting it to be associated to you. The only problem is if you want to keep your finances to yourself or as hidden as they can be, which obviously isn't going to happen if you're putting your bitcoin address on your own personal business card. It's not really an issue other people knowing your address otherwise.

There is a potential problem with reusing public addresses, the reusing works by "accident", not by design.
It is considered a bad practice, and not something that should be done. Nevertheless I personally have a vanity addy which I reuse for small transactions.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address_reuse

The security part: as long as an address only received bitcoins, only the address is known. But once you spent some coins from that address, its public key is known (public address is a double hash of a public key). Theoretically, having your public keys out there could be more vulnerable than having only their sha256+ripemd160 hashes out there.

for small amount you are same with the use of the same address, but with big amount i prefer to have many , also good vs collision(yeah it won't happen , but it's not impossible)

Very funny :D

Whilst I understand it may be considered 'bad practice' I don't think its a concern and all it does is scare a lot of newbs away who are worried they're going to somehow lose their coins if they re-use addresses. That being said, if you want privacy and 'best practice' use new addresses and don't tie them to your real world identity.

Yes, this is what I would do as well, each customer should have it's own address, that way it is much easier doing some kind of book keeping :-)

Then you could consolidate each money stream into another address to keep an eye on what generated how much money...

Just use vanitygen and generate your own unique address :)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25804.0

Download the window binaries, run it, import the privatekey of your new address to your wallet software (electrim bitcoin-qt armory, etc)

and then just proceed to use it.

Fastest tool ever...but an update would be great for still a better performance :D

Very interesting - thanks for this, I had no idea that this was the case.

I would use multiple address for each transaction.

So I can record them easily.

using one address is ok as long as ur ok with people knowing how much btc u have. its also a good idea for merchants as customers can always verify they've  paid you

The advice comes from Satoshi's original paper.

You might want want to read it to know his reasons, but you are not obliged to follow the advice and might have your own reasons for not doing it

True. When your public key is known, the security is lowered from 160bits to 128bits. But the good news, it is still impossible to brute-force your private keys.
For your information: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=595801.msg6577161#msg6577161

So if OP doesn't carry much about the privacy issue, it shouldn't be a problem.

thanks for advice and info :)

take a look at vanity addresses, you can create your desired address and even put your name in it.