Vanity Addresses and Private Keys

[156216]

I just had a couple questions regarding vanity address generators and private keys.

Why would person A use a vanity address created by person B if person B knows the private key to that address? Wouldn't this defeat the whole purpose of keeping your keys secret?

Also, how safe are vanity address generators? How can I trust that the developer will not steal my coins?

[CIYAM]

You should only let another person generate a vanity address for you if it is one that involves more than 1 private key (generally referred to as M of N signature addresses which start with a 3 rather than a 1).

Unless the prefix you are wanting is longer than say 5 characters you would be better to generate such an address yourself.

If you are worried about using "vanitygen" then I would advise generating your vanity address on an "offline" computer (and building the executable yourself from the repo source).

Also note that although I do use a vanity address myself it is never a great idea to re-use Bitcoin addresses.

[156216]

one that involves more than 1 private key

So you would need both private keys to spend the coins from that address?

[CIYAM]

So you would need both private keys to spend the coins from that address?

Correct - basically some clever math stuff is involved which makes it safe for you to get someone else to generate your vanity address.

There is a service offering to do this (not free except for easy ones) - if you search the forum it should be easy enough to find.

[156216]

As a "newbie" on this site, thank you for your help!

[CIYAM]

As a "newbie" on this site, thank you for your help!

Most welcome - and it shouldn't take too long to get rid of the "newbie" tag.