[Need help] Understanding wallets and addresses

[kevmb1]

Hi,

I am relatively new to bitcoin and all of its jargon.
Here's my situation...

I have a business and I would like to give each of my customers a UNIQUE bitcoin address that they can use to pay me. (So I know when each customer pays and when)
I would like to manage all of these addresses under one application. (preferably desktop app)
I am not focused on staying anonymous.

I have tried out a few and I have found one (GreenAddress) I "think" suits my needs as I can generate as many new addresses as I like and add them to the address book.

I would like to know..

- Do these "receive" addresses remain valid indefinitely? (ie a customer can pay to the same address multiple times over a long period of time)
- Is it possible to have 100 addresses that lead to 1 wallet indefinitely? or do I have to have 100 unique wallets?

Thanks in advance.

[achow101]

- Do these "receive" addresses remain valid indefinitely? (ie a customer can pay to the same address multiple times over a long period of time)

Yes. There is no expiration. There is no central server that says "this address is invalid".

- Is it possible to have 100 addresses that lead to 1 wallet indefinitely? or do I have to have 100 unique wallets?

I'm not quite sure what you are asking here. A wallet is a collection of addresses. It can have as many as you want. There is no limit (except for maybe disk space on your computer).

[Red-Apple]

for your business and if you want to accept bitcoin easily with smallest amount of work, take a look a t services like Bitpay.

big corporations like Valve (steam) is using them to receive bitcoin payment through their processor which generates unique addresses for each customer and they pay to that address.

and then you can choose whether to receive the payment yourself in form of bitcoin or receive the fiat equivalent based on the current rate.

[kevmb1]

Sorry the reason I'm asking is because someone told me

"Independent from specific wallet software, you should always assume that once a Bitcoin address has been used, it can never be used again."

So I was unsure.

- Do these "receive" addresses remain valid indefinitely? (ie a customer can pay to the same address multiple times over a long period of time)

Yes. There is no expiration. There is no central server that says "this address is invalid".

- Is it possible to have 100 addresses that lead to 1 wallet indefinitely? or do I have to have 100 unique wallets?

I'm not quite sure what you are asking here. A wallet is a collection of addresses. It can have as many as you want. There is no limit (except for maybe disk space on your computer).

You answered my questions, thanks!

As for Bitpay, I will definitely look into it.

[virusasog]

Hi,

I am relatively new to bitcoin and all of its jargon.
Here's my situation...

I have a business and I would like to give each of my customers a UNIQUE bitcoin address that they can use to pay me. (So I know when each customer pays and when)
I would like to manage all of these addresses under one application. (preferably desktop app)
I am not focused on staying anonymous.

I have tried out a few and I have found one (GreenAddress) I "think" suits my needs as I can generate as many new addresses as I like and add them to the address book.

I would like to know..

- Do these "receive" addresses remain valid indefinitely? (ie a customer can pay to the same address multiple times over a long period of time)
- Is it possible to have 100 addresses that lead to 1 wallet indefinitely? or do I have to have 100 unique wallets?

Thanks in advance.

As I know Yup you can have multiple addresses in one wallet and then nowadays in blockchain.info new version It's frequently changing the address to have anonymous among others and I think you can more than 100 address in a sigle wallet.

[PremiumCodeX]

I have a GreenAddress (dot) it wallet and it has been working fairly well for my needs. Maybe, you will find its feature useful that it supports Watch-only access too so you can set different level of security to when you want to only check the balance and recent transactions and to when you want to manage your funds. It also has an API that you could develop a desktop application with. However, I wonder why you want to develop a desktop application. I can see that people prefer to port desktop apps into web apps. Vice versa is rarely asked nowadays and not without a reason.

[smho_16]

Use Bitcoin core wallet. You have to download the full blockchain which is about 80 GB so far but the bitcoin core wallet as far as I know permits you to use up to 2000 addresses and I don't think you will need more than this number unless you have a super huge business.

An address can be used as long as you want but is not recommended (many wallets don't recommend it). An example is when you have a single deposit address in some sports book like betcoin.ag. You can always deposit there and that will be always your address. So I think you are good to go.

[Coin-Keeper]

Sorry the reason I'm asking is because someone told me

"Independent from specific wallet software, you should always assume that once a Bitcoin address has been used, it can never be used again."

So I was unsure.

OP,

I think the people that are saying this are in a different situation than you.  Some are trying to remain anonymous and avoid setting up multiple payments to the same address.  That would end up leading to an easy trace back over time.  You have already declared that anonymity is not an issue for you.  In fact just the opposite, so that you and your clients can confirm with each other (as needed) that a payment has been sent and/or received.  There is no limit to the number of times an address can receive activity on.  As an example look at the members here who provide a BTC addy in their signature.  Some have many transactions to those addresses.  While anonymity doesn't seem to be a concern for you, be aware that should a client ever get your Master Public Key they could see all addresses in the business wallet you use.  Your description makes it sound as if these btc addresses in a sense are going to be a business database of sorts.  I would be cautious not to allow the MPK to leak out.  They could not spend your coins using an MPK, but a general privacy leak from my perspective would occur.  Just thought I would mention it.  I ran my own business for a long time so that is how I think.

[kevmb1]

Thanks for the replies, I really do appreciate it!

My initial question has been answered and for now I will stick with greenaddress as it is simple to use and generate receive addresses, and add to address book
(note: I am not supporting greenaddress, it just suits my needs for now)

Sorry the reason I'm asking is because someone told me

"Independent from specific wallet software, you should always assume that once a Bitcoin address has been used, it can never be used again."

So I was unsure.

OP,

I think the people that are saying this are in a different situation than you.  Some are trying to remain anonymous and avoid setting up multiple payments to the same address.  That would end up leading to an easy trace back over time.  You have already declared that anonymity is not an issue for you.  In fact just the opposite, so that you and your clients can confirm with each other (as needed) that a payment has been sent and/or received.  There is no limit to the number of times an address can receive activity on.  As an example look at the members here who provide a BTC addy in their signature.  Some have many transactions to those addresses.  While anonymity doesn't seem to be a concern for you, be aware that should a client ever get your Master Public Key they could see all addresses in the business wallet you use.  Your description makes it sound as if these btc addresses in a sense are going to be a business database of sorts.  I would be cautious not to allow the MPK to leak out.  They could not spend your coins using an MPK, but a general privacy leak from my perspective would occur.  Just thought I would mention it.  I ran my own business for a long time so that is how I think.

So I am intrigued by what you have to say about MPK and privacy. I don't want my customers' (or my own) privacy to become fully compromised. I am still reading up about Bitcoin and still have yet to read more about MPK's.

What steps can I take to prevent my MPK being "leaked"? (I know this is unrelated question and should probably be in a new topic)

[Digitalbitcoin]

Wallets and address o any altcoin means it is a public key which you can use to receive payments.
Ever address have three keys
1) Private Key
2) Secret Key and
3) Public key.

Public key is used for sending and receiving payments. While Private key is used to recover your wallet. And Secret key is a string attached to both private key and public key.

[DannyHamilton]

someone told me

"Independent from specific wallet software, you should always assume that once a Bitcoin address has been used, it can never be used again."

If you're receiving bitcoins, then your address is valid for as long as you have exclusive access to the private key and you wish to continue receiving bitcoins there.  It's not a good idea, but it will work just fine.

The statement that "you should always assume that once a Bitcoin address has been used, it can never be used again" is advice for someone that is sending bitcoins.  As the sender, you have no way of knowing if the recipient is still planning on receiving at that address.  You have no way of knowing if the recipient still has access to that address. You have no way of knowing if anyone else has hacked the recipient and gained control of the address. If you want to send bitcoins to someone that you've sent to in the past, you should ALWAYS ask them what address they want you to use.  They may ask you to re-use the same address, or they may give you a new address, but you want them to take on the responsibility of indicating exactly which address they want you to send the bitcoins to.  That way, you can prove that you sent the bitcoins exactly where they told you to, and they can't claim that you shouldn't have used that address.

[virtualx]

I don't want my customers' (or my own) privacy to become fully compromised.

Software can create a new bitcoin address for every transaction. Some bitcoin wallets do this automatically. There are some commercal vendors that do this by default. This will increase the customers privacy. All transactions are recorded in a public database called the blockchain. If an address has only one bitcoin address it's very difficult for a normal person to determine what has been bought and who has been paid. 

[kevmb1]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I have read up more about bitcoin (as a currency and a technology).