Pros and cons of using new Bitcoin addresses for each transaction?

[BitHodler]

Pro :
I use a new address for every transaction - privacy, that is the sole reason for me.

Con :
I once forgot to give my new address to the person that I quite often do business with and he sent the coins to one of my older wallets. Lucky enough it was a very small amount.

[dragonusa9]

pros : More anonymous and hard to detected
cons : Hard to remember the last addresses after transaction, and hard to prove your own wallet
well that is only thing that i can think

What does this mean that it is hard to prove your own wallet and why is it important to remember the last addresses after a transaction? thanks in advance 

mean hard to prove that every transaction the address will change
the thing remember the last address is to prove your own wallet sir, because every transaction address changed and we must give new address to do some transaction

[BruceLee007]

i dont think that there are any pros, the only con that will make you have hard time with it is taht you will have bunch of addresses and wouldnt know which one to use when you will need it

[MoonShadow]

The addresses are valid forever unless you lose your wallet.

oh, didn't know that.
thanks for the info!

How could a "Legedary" don't know about this???

Notice when he posted that. He wasn't legendary then.

[Evelyntom]

So wonderful about Bitcoins.

[SuperCoinGuy]

I love using new addresses for each transaction because it's harder for people to trace back to your main wallet with your stash.

[DimensionZ]

I prefer to have a designated address for each website I am dealing with listed under labels and such so I don't need to waste time figuring out which address is for which website. Having a different address for each TX sometimes gets messy if you want to keep track of your bitcoin finances but of course that improves your privacy.

[FABLE]

Thank you all for the great answers, very interesting.  Is there any suggestions on what may be an all time favorite for some of the Old'Timers here to set up an account & or wallet ? 

[lol1yatme]

Can someone please give me a list of the pros and cons of using new Bitcoin addresses for each transaction? It seems very inconvenient to use a new address each time.

I think it helps with the security a lot. The chances of someone being able to use one of your previous address to get bitcoin is already impossible. The cons are that you constantly have to check your site if you want to know your current address, even though the previous is still working.

[prtty2gal2]

pros : More anonymous and hard to detected
cons : Hard to remember the last addresses after transaction, and hard to prove your own wallet
well that is only thing that i can think

What does this mean that it is hard to prove your own wallet and why is it important to remember the last addresses after a transaction? thanks in advance 

mean hard to prove that every transaction the address will change
the thing remember the last address is to prove your own wallet sir, because every transaction address changed and we must give new address to do some transaction

You don’t need to use a new address every time, that’s not how it works. You can still use the very first address you got and use it to get funds. But using different address every time makes it harder for hackers to get any possible information about you from anywhere they are following you. There is no cons in using multiple address other than getting messy with more addresses.

[phkrudoker]

Thank you all for the great answers, very interesting.  Is there any suggestions on what may be an all time favorite for some of the Old'Timers here to set up an account & or wallet ? 

I think using coinbase would be great for you to learn how to use a wallet. It has a very simple interface and very good reputation for being secure. Try it out, there are even tutorials on how to set up your account! It is super simple!

[Intutan]

I actually stopped thinking of the BitCoin adresses as my Account number, and started considering them a reference number for each transaction

That is what I think and do. I create new address for every transaction so that I know who I receive the money from.

[redsun114]

I prefer to have a designated address for each website I am dealing with listed under labels and such so I don't need to waste time figuring out which address is for which website. Having a different address for each TX sometimes gets messy if you want to keep track of your bitcoin finances but of course that improves your privacy.

This comes in handy for me too. I like not worrying about updating it as they always send the funds to my wallet, yet it is anonymous enough for me to just hand out to anyone if they wish to pay to that address. But managing multiple address in document as well in wallet is a bit worry here. My multibit wallet becomes slower in responses when ever I open the wallet with many addresses within it.

[Doms]

It can be a bit of a task if you use a different address each time you do a transaction. If you are the kind of person who deals with other persons a lot, then it might be to your benefit if you use so many of these wallets, just for security. I myself prefer only a few wallets to receive bitcoin, because I still have to transfer them to another master wallet, which entail extra costs on my part.

[ausbit]

Thank you all for the great answers, very interesting.  Is there any suggestions on what may be an all time favorite for some of the Old'Timers here to set up an account & or wallet ? 

What you could do is just write down an old address so that if you ever need to give someone your address it is an old one that will still received BTC to you current wallet. Keeping many address has some proven advantages, still if you do not want mess up thing and you are a just a small bitcoiner with less activities, then few addresses are more than enough.

[vasrasus]

I used to have trouble managing payments to a service that used a new address every time. Seems to conflict with the idea of an address book. Imagine if everyone's phone number changed every call. Not too convenient.

Here's what I do now:

1. Copy the payment address.
2. Choose Send Coins in the client.
3. Choose Address Book in the popup.
4. Choose New Address.
5. Enter a name for this payee, and paste in the Bitcoin address. Use the same name for all payments to this payee. For example, I use MBC for all transfers to my mybitcoin.com account.
6. Click OK in the New Address window.
7. Click OK in the Address Book window.
8. The Pay To field now holds the payment address. Enter the amount and click Send.

This way the transaction in your wallet will show who it's for. It does add some extra steps though. I wish sites would give customers the option to reuse a persistent address.

Wow noted on this it will really help alot. Hope everyone can apply it to avoid scam or failures in transactions. Better really is to be responsible and provide self control and have sense of security

[n691309]

Can someone please give me a list of the pros and cons of using new Bitcoin addresses for each transaction? It seems very inconvenient to use a new address each time.

If you want to mange how many bitcoins do you have then you can't check from lots of addresses (checking in blockchain not through the wallet), a bit mess about which address is in which wallet or something like that. The pros is that you are less trackable but not 100%.

[xuan87]

using a lot of address is more secure and harder to track, for security reason generating new address every few transaction is better, the hacker also wont be to excited to try to hack your wallet if you only have few coins in 1 address, the cons is it hard to manage so many address and sometimes when you want to ask somebody to send something to your address you need to check your address again because its too many and too messy

[Intutan]

using a lot of address is more secure and harder to track, for security reason generating new address every few transaction is better, the hacker also wont be to excited to try to hack your wallet if you only have few coins in 1 address, the cons is it hard to manage so many address and sometimes when you want to ask somebody to send something to your address you need to check your address again because its too many and too messy

I agree with that. I use one address for each transaction. So the amount in each address is quite small actually.

[stevo401]

I don't use a new address for every transaction, but I do change my address regularly. If you use Coinbase I relieve that it will automatically update your address to a new one, but the old address remains associated with your account so you can still receive any funds which are sent there in future. Of course Coinbase will still know of the link between your accounts, so it's not 100% evasive but harder to track through the blockchain.

The way I look at is that changing addresses is good for privacy, but unless you have a specific reason to try and evade tracing then just changing regularly is more that enough