Bitcoin Forum

Is there a desktop client, much like the reference client (Satoshi) that can be made that only uses one (or a few) keys? And it will keep using that one key all the time, for change.

This is how, I think, Bitcoin Spinner behaves, except that Spinner is for Android, and uses a server.

I'm trying to avoid the Coin Control patch, but maybe that's the best option right now.

Does Armory provide that ability?  I'm not sure.  The only two "full node" wallets that I'm aware of are Bitcoin-Qt and Armory (which makes use of Bitcoin-Qt as a conduit, so you end up running it anyhow).

If you are not looking for a "full node" client (I wasn't sure what you meant when you said "like the reference client"), then MultiBit or Electrum may provide you with a bit better control of addresses.  Have you looked into either of them?

I might look into them. I thought I saw a very basic client some time ago, but I forgot where.

What I did was get the coin control version of the Satoshi client, and I could make that work for me while having access to the full original client anyway.

Wallets in MultiBit (when they are first created) have only one private key.
If you do not create more yourself you will only ever have the one.

The simple client (with just one private key) that you recall is VanillaWallet. This is another bitcoinj based client. When I last looked at it, it was closed source. IMHO open source code is a prerequisite for any desktop Bitcoin client. you could ask the dev to consider open sourcing it I suppose.

Yeah, VanilaWallet is the one I saw. But precisely since it was based on bitcoinj AND closed source, that's why I didn't even try to use it. And I prefer software that has the lowest or zero dependencies; this tends to make the software OS specific though, so that's the major disadvantage.