When do I need to change my bitcoin addressand why?

[LittleBitFunny]

I've been told by some articles that I should change my bitcoin address regularly, and some even suggest that I should change it after every purchase.  Can I have your advice on how to keep my addresses safe? Also, can anyone explain to me why I need to keep changing the address, since they can't send bitcoin without access to my wallet?

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[Velkro]

I've been told by some articles that I should change my bitcoin address regularly, and some even suggest that I should change it after every purchase.  Can I have your advice on how to keep my addresses safe? Also, can anyone explain to me why I need to keep changing the address, since they can't send bitcoin without access to my wallet?

This advice to change addresses for every transaction has its motive only in privacy.
You can use all the time same address, but anyone who you transact with, will be able to track your spending for years (assuming you used this address for couple years). Privacy is only concern here, not security.

[bering]

maybe they suggest just like that because of security reason and they means are don't save all of your bitcoin into 1 address for long term because could be hacked someday but i think change bitcoin address regularly would not guarantee your wallet safe and it all depends on yourself how good you maintain your bitcoin

[AmDD]

Ive seen some suggest this also for record keeping. If each address is unique then its easier to keep record as to what the transaction was for. I guess the TXid would do this too so maybe its not as useful.

[LittleBitFunny]

I've been told by some articles that I should change my bitcoin address regularly, and some even suggest that I should change it after every purchase.  Can I have your advice on how to keep my addresses safe? Also, can anyone explain to me why I need to keep changing the address, since they can't send bitcoin without access to my wallet?

This advice to change addresses for every transaction has its motive only in privacy.
You can use all the time same address, but anyone who you transact with, will be able to track your spending for years (assuming you used this address for couple years). Privacy is only concern here, not security.

So if I'm not doing anything illegal or embarrassing with my Bitcoin, I'm safe with the same address? Or is it more complicated than that? Also, where are these transactions logged?

[DannyHamilton]

So if I'm not doing anything illegal or embarrassing with my Bitcoin, I'm safe with the same address? Or is it more complicated than that?

A bitcoin address isn't an "account number", and there is no real limit on how many bitcoin addresses you can have.  Think of a bitcoin address more like an invoice number.  It allows you to determine who sent you money, when they sent it to you, and why they sent it.

Like an invoice number, you certainly can re-use it, but why would you?  Generate a new bitcoin address every time you want to receive a payment, make a note of who you gave the address to and why you gave it to them, and then you'll know exactly who is paying you and why.

If you give two people the same bitcoin address to pay you and ask both of them to send you 0.5 BTC for something they are purchasing from you... Then 0.5 BTC shows up in your wallet... How do you know who sent you the money?  If they both claim they were the sender, how will you know who is lying?

You don't just reduce your own privacy when you re-use addresses, you reduce the privacy of everyone that you engage in transactions  with.

Also, where are these transactions logged?

After they are confirmed, they are logged in every copy of the blockchain stored by every full node on the bitcoin network.

[AmDD]

So if I'm not doing anything illegal or embarrassing with my Bitcoin, I'm safe with the same address? Or is it more complicated than that?

A bitcoin address isn't an "account number", and there is no real limit on how many bitcoin addresses you can have.  Think of a bitcoin address more like an invoice number.  It allows you to determine who sent you money, when they sent it to you, and why they sent it.

Like an invoice number, you certainly can re-use it, but why would you?  Generate a new bitcoin address every time you want to receive a payment, make a note of who you gave the address to and why you gave it to them, and then you'll know exactly who is paying you and why.

If you give two people the same bitcoin address to pay you and ask both of them to send you 0.5 BTC for something they are purchasing from you... Then 0.5 BTC shows up in your wallet... How do you know who sent you the money?  If they both claim they were the sender, how will you know who is lying?

You don't just reduce your own privacy when you re-use addresses, you reduce the privacy of everyone that you engage in transactions  with.

Also, where are these transactions logged?

After they are confirmed, they are logged in every copy of the blockchain stored by every full node on the bitcoin network.

Much better explanation than I gave.

[Kprawn]

If you use one Bitcoin addresses for the payment of a bunch of services and products, the change is high that someone might figure out who you

are and then start targeting you with different types of attacks & hacks to get hold of your remaining money. Some services keep logs and they

have poor security. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous for a reason, and financial privacy are one of those reasons. Just imagine if you bank account

was publically accessible and people knew how much money your had in the bank.  ... Using different Bitcoin addresses, makes it more

difficult for people to infringe on your financial privacy. 

[KyriosCluster]

For higher safety you can use different wallets, a offline wallet where you store your BTC on long term
and a online wallet or a wallet on your mobile phone where you can pay your daily expenses from.

[Coin-Keeper]

There are many ways to subdue the issues arising with continual use of the same BTC address.  Example:  a person uses the same address for incoming funds (a non true name type of transaction).  You could have two, or two dozen, or two thousand transactions where coins come into your "static" address.  Perhaps a website donation address, or similar.  It can be a pain in the ass to rotate the address being used when you have no connection to be maintained with the sender of the coins.  So lets say you have accumulated a reasonable amount of coins in this address (for you its basically static in nature).   Here the issue becomes when you use the coins personally, an identity risk can present itself.  A solution that I use is to setup a combo of commercial tumblers between my static addresses and the coins destination in my personal use wallets.  By breaking the connection between the two ends of the chain the continual use of an address is made very acceptable.  That means it is also simplicity at its best.  Downside; it costs me 2-4% to multi tumble.  Its worth it to me.  Lots here won't like my scheme.  We all have our own way of doing things.

[LittleBitFunny]

So if I'm not doing anything illegal or embarrassing with my Bitcoin, I'm safe with the same address? Or is it more complicated than that?

A bitcoin address isn't an "account number", and there is no real limit on how many bitcoin addresses you can have.  Think of a bitcoin address more like an invoice number.  It allows you to determine who sent you money, when they sent it to you, and why they sent it.

Like an invoice number, you certainly can re-use it, but why would you?  Generate a new bitcoin address every time you want to receive a payment, make a note of who you gave the address to and why you gave it to them, and then you'll know exactly who is paying you and why.

If you give two people the same bitcoin address to pay you and ask both of them to send you 0.5 BTC for something they are purchasing from you... Then 0.5 BTC shows up in your wallet... How do you know who sent you the money?  If they both claim they were the sender, how will you know who is lying?

You don't just reduce your own privacy when you re-use addresses, you reduce the privacy of everyone that you engage in transactions  with.

Also, where are these transactions logged?

After they are confirmed, they are logged in every copy of the blockchain stored by every full node on the bitcoin network.

Thank you very much, this explanation helped a lot.  A more personal question, not trying to offend but isn't there an option to not see signatures on your profile? Since most people with signatures are doing campaigns, wouldn't that be easier than keeping a big list?

[DannyHamilton]

isn't there an option to not see signatures on your profile? Since most people with signatures are doing campaigns, wouldn't that be easier than keeping a big list?

That's a horrible idea.  If I turn off signatures, then how would I know who to ignore? I'd have to read through thousands of posts of nonsense and useless drivel just to figure out who wasting my time and making the forum useless.

The problem isn't the signatures.  The problem is that the signature advertising campaigns are paying people to fill what used to be a very useful forum with so much nonsense and noise that the forum is quickly becoming useless.

Turning off signatures won't stop those people from posting their nonsense. I'd still see it all and wouldn't know which posts are looking for (or offering) actual help and which are just graffiti from advertiser paid hoodlums.

However, ignoring everyone on the list means that I can quickly and easily see the useful and informative posts without first needing to read through hundreds of posts of nonsense on every thread.

Unfortunately, I haven't updated my posted list in a bit more than a year (and I've probably clicked "ignore" on hundreds of users since then).  It probably isn't very useful for other users at the moment.  Perhaps I'll update the posted list this week.

[hardtime]

If you'd like to be anonymous and not have someone tracking your every move when it comes to buying things with bitcoin, you should just go ahead and change you're sending and receive address for every transaction that you make. For most wallets, it's really not a hassle to go ahead and just generate a new address as all I have to do is click "Generate a new receive address" on bitgo.

For higher safety you can use different wallets, a offline wallet where you store your BTC on long term
and a online wallet or a wallet on your mobile phone where you can pay your daily expenses from.

This could work if you are scared about security, but I trust using 2FA and BitGo enough to be able to just get all my address' from them as it works perfectly fine. They have a mobile wallet too on Android and IOS

[Diced90]

The reason you will need to change bitcoin addresses for all new transactions is to prevent anyone from tracking you and its a way of preserving bitcoins vision of anonymity.

[dailycoins]

Bitcoin wallet should create new address automatically for every transaction. If your wallet isn't doing so then change to something different. You want any anonymity for your transactions otherwise you might get tracked.

[Bellator]

I've been told by some articles that I should change my bitcoin address regularly, and some even suggest that I should change it after every purchase.  Can I have your advice on how to keep my addresses safe? Also, can anyone explain to me why I need to keep changing the address, since they can't send bitcoin without access to my wallet?

For me, Changing bitcoin address regularly or not changing it regularly is safe. If you are buying in illegal site you should change regularly so that they can't trace you. They can send bitcoin without access to your wallet, they just need bitcoin address so that they can send to you some bitcoin.

[Aamir1]

I've been told by some articles that I should change my bitcoin address regularly, and some even suggest that I should change it after every purchase.  Can I have your advice on how to keep my addresses safe? Also, can anyone explain to me why I need to keep changing the address, since they can't send bitcoin without access to my wallet?

It is only done for privacy purposes so that a person should not know what have been with that wallet until now so you should change it for every new transaction. But now a days almost every wallet (web wallets mostly) automatically change your wallet address once a transaction is done so you don't need to worry about this if you are using a web wallet like Xapo.

[peter0425]

Is this the normal practice? What if you created a wallet in one of the local exchanges, and that local exchangers doesn't have the option for you to change your bitcoin address? Then what should you do?

[wintermeasures]

I've been told by some articles that I should change my bitcoin address regularly, and some even suggest that I should change it after every purchase.  Can I have your advice on how to keep my addresses safe? Also, can anyone explain to me why I need to keep changing the address, since they can't send bitcoin without access to my wallet?

According to me it is Because If you use Same Bitcoin Address for a Long Time and Doing Transactions Everyday with the Address then it may Cause Privacy Issues and Also there is no Time frame to Change your Bitcoin address and you can Change your Bitcoin address when you want to change it.......

[Sled]

You need to change your address to be able to maintain safety because if the address that you are using is keep on changing then it will be harder for people like hackers or other kind of people to trace you from doing transaction, so it is a good thing to keep on changing address even on small transactions.