Receiving BTC Safely And Securely From Other Traders?

[jerry0]

So I will be planning to receive some btc from someone and trading funds with them and have a few questions.  I don't believe I ever done this once with my nano ledger ever.  But I have requested btc from sites before without issue.  But dealing with people is obviously much different than just giving a site my btc address and saying okay send the btc here.




1. I know when I check my btc receiving address on my nano ledger s with ledger live, it starts with the number 3 which means its a nest segwit address right?  The thing is after I do that transaction with that receiving address... say the next day I connect my nano ledger to my laptop again and request a receiving address, will the btc receiving address always be different?  I remember people said never use a same receiving address more than once.  So this is still accurate right?  So each time you want to receive btc or any crypto on your nano ledger, always connect to it and get a receiving address which will be new?  The lazy and unsafe way would be use the receiving btc address and just save that address and just give that btc address to anyone who you planning to receive btc from?
 



2.  Now when someone else sends me btc, does it matter what address they are sending from?  Such as legacy, nest segwit or the other segwit?  As long as it copy and paste them my btc receiving address, that is all that is needed?  I know with sites, that is no issue as I never had a problem with a site requesting btc.  But with other people, I want to make sure of this.  Such that they don't say I sent btc and I say... well it didn't go through.




3. After they tell me they sent me the btc, how many confirmations before I know the transaction will go through?  I remember the rule a while back was if it was below a certain amount, x number of confirmations.  If its between a certain amount, it should be x confirmations.  And if its higher than a certain amount, like minimum x confirmations?   I will most likely send funds first since well they would be sending a nonreversible method.  But if they are sending btc first, how do I make sure the transaction will eventually go through without that double spend thing that I heard of years ago?  Such that I don't want to see the transaction showing with say 2 confirmations, then only for the transaction to get cancelled?  





4. Also this might be a foolish question but when someone sends btc or any coin and does a transaction, I know there is a transaction id where you click on and it goes to the blockchain and you see how many confirmations there are and the process of the transfer.  Now... is there any chance someone can send you a link to that seems to be the transaction id but when you click on it, it could be malware/virus?  I assume this can be easily done right?  Such as you click on it and it doesn't direct you to the blockchain of the transaction but could be malware?  If so, how do you counter this?  I assume you could just manually type in that entire long letter/number of the transaction id in the blockchain to track it?  Imagine someone going okay here is the transaction id info on the blockchain of the btc I just sent... then you click on it and it could be malware/virus?
 



5.  I read a thread not long ago that someone asked if you have someone's btc receiving address, you could see their history or a lot of details about it.  I remember I thought the answers I was going to read was going to say false especially if someone doesn't reuse their btc receiving address more than once.  But apparently that is not true?  I remember people said someone could actually find out all your btc transaction history that way?  I remember back when I used electrum, I did used the same receiving address multiple times.  I had no idea that it was bad.  But I did it way too much already.  So by the time I stopped doing that, there were too many transactions already with that receiving address.  I then used other addresses and eventually got tons of different change addresses.  Then I eventually moved my coins from electrum to nano ledger.  Each time I would receive btc, I would connect my ledger to laptop to get the btc receiving address.  I do not know for sure if I ever reused a receiving address more than once.  Is there a way to find this out or not?  But giving my btc receiving address to someone for them to send to me, does that pose much of any security risk?

[mk4]

1. The automatically changing address is for privacy purposes; but you can freely receive funds using the same address without problem. (but then again, privacy concern)

2. Yes, except in some cases if the bitcoin is coming from an exchange. I've had instances where exchanges couldn't withdraw to addresses with the bc1xxxxx format. But if it's coming from a non-custodial wallet, it should be fine.

3. 2 confirmations should be totally fine. If it's a good amount of money though, probably go with 3+ just for your peace of mind.

4. It's highly unlikely for your device to be infected just by clicking a link. Most of the time you need to download stuff to actually get infected. In the end though, you don't necessarily need to click any blockchain link sent by the other person. You can simply just lookup the bitcoin address you sent to the other person on Blockchain.com/Blockstream.info/etc and look at the recent in-bound transaction.

5. Yes, they can see the past transactions if you re-use addresses hence why most wallet software automatically changes the displayed "receive address" every time you receive funds. It's not necessarily a security risk; a lot more of a privacy one(that could potentially become a personal security risk if it's the case that the other person ends up knowing you have a crap ton of bitcoin). But seriously, just prevent re-using addresses as much as possible just to be extra sure; despite it being unlikely that the other person is going to dig through your past transactions.

[haasanjui]

You can Send and Recive bitcoin from anyone securely but if you are dealing with anonymous people then there are some chances that he will scam with you and stole your money or Bitcoin. But you need to buy and sell Bitcoin with trusted people only.

[jerry0]

Thanks for the responses.


So 2 confirmations is the minimum for amounts that isn't a lot.  By that how much USD are you talking about?  You say If it's a good amount of money though, probably go with 3+ just for your peace of mind.  So you are saying 3+ confirmations, there is no chance of a double spend or anything like that happening?  Thus once you see 3 confirmations, the transaction is not reversible?  But anything less such as 2, its still possibly?


Oh wait if I give someone the btc address to send to, well I could just type in that btc address I gave and see if there is an pending transaction?  Is that correct?  Well I meant if someone says okay I just sent the btc, here is the transaction id on the blockchain, well if you click on it, someone could make a link like that a virus/malware right?  Someone else mention just copy and paste it to blockchain and look at transaction that way.  Thoughts on that?  But you can't see how many confirmations there are just by checking your btc receiving address on blockchain right?  Or its the same?  The look at the recent in bound transaction is what Im curious about here.


Well I have used nano ledger to send/receive and don't believe I have reused an address to receive.  So that means if I give them the btc receiving address, if they were to check it online, there should be 0 transaction history right?  The thing was I heard if you reused addresses, then giving someone your btc receiving address could mean they see all your btc transaction history such as how much btc you send/receive total which is obviously not good for privacy.  Yea what you said with the it could become security risk if another party knows you own a ton of btc for example.


But you say giving someone your btc receiving address should be no issue almost ever as long as you don't reuse the address right?  So when you get the btc receiving address from nano ledger, what is the site I go to ... to check the transaction history of the btc receiving address?  I should do that everytime right?  Just to see if it show any history before giving that receiving address to someone to send?  Now once they send you btc, that transaction will show in the history.  And any transactions you do whether sending or receiving more btc from then... using different receiving address of course, should have no impact on this?  Also that mean that one btc receiving address you gave to one person will always have just that ONE transaction history and thats all?