Why the suggestion to change wallets/addresses often?

[BittBurger]

I keep hearing Andreas Antonopoulos talking about this, and have seen a few others say it too.

Even if you do storage offline, on paper wallets, they recommend moving the coins every so often.

If that paper wallet never sees the light of day, why would you have to move the coins?   Talk about a hassle and a half, trying to import these things, not to mention the stress of something going wrong.

I prefer to just leave things as they are.

Why do people make this suggestion?

-B-

[DeathAndTaxes]

Please provide a cite because most likely you are misinterpreting a statement.

[BittBurger]

The best I can do is:

"One of the most recent 2 Lets Talk Bitcoin Podcasts"

Andreas discusses it.  Or maybe it was that 2 hour interview he just did with Stephan.

He explicitly states that you should put your coins on paper wallets, and periodically import them, and (i believe he said) move them to new locations/addresses as well.

That would be a nightmare for me, for various reasons. 

[frankenmint]

I keep hearing Andreas Antonopoulos talking about this, and have seen a few others say it too.

Even if you do storage offline, on paper wallets, they recommend moving the coins every so often.

If that paper wallet never sees the light of day, why would you have to move the coins?   Talk about a hassle and a half, trying to import these things, not to mention the stress of something going wrong.

I prefer to just leave things as they are.

Why do people make this suggestion?

-B-

For the sake of anonymity I suppose.  I'm sort of the same way, I don't do anything illicit so it doesn't matter to me at all if someone can see my balance or what I've had.  Believe it or not the NSA is definitely data mining the blockchain and using it to connect your so-called anonymity to you.  Perhaps it could be that they are worried about being able to use sets of repeated data for a user to be able to crack your private key? 

[DeathAndTaxes]

The best I can do is:

"One of the most recent 2 Lets Talk Bitcoin Podcasts"

Andreas discusses it.  Or maybe it was that 2 hour interview he just did with Stephan.

Then I will stick with you are misinterpreting a statement and they never said what you claim they did.

There is absolutely no reason to change wallets "often".  Addresses shouldn't be reused but that is different from what you claimed they said.

[BittBurger]

Ok ill update this thread when i find it.   The reason I posted is because I was reading this thread, and the person said nearly the same thing:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=493803.msg5442741#msg5442741

"To be anonymous, change your wallets from time to time"

Reminded me of whatever it was Andreas said recently.

I swear Andreas said to move your coins around periodically.  Not necessarily "often".

Gimme a few...

[Armis]

I keep hearing Andreas Antonopoulos talking about this, and have seen a few others say it too.

Even if you do storage offline, on paper wallets, they recommend moving the coins every so often.

If that paper wallet never sees the light of day, why would you have to move the coins?   Talk about a hassle and a half, trying to import these things, not to mention the stress of something going wrong.

I prefer to just leave things as they are.

Why do people make this suggestion?

-B-

most of the time when you are listening to Andreas it's extemporaneous, and most of the time he is simply repeating what he has said over and over again. so sometimes he leaves out bits that he was suppose to say or goes off on familiar tangents and forgets to circle back to tie it up neatly.

The answer to your question is once you have your paper wallet properly hashed with an offline address generated from your virgin computer your coins are safe from the net  


If you listen to many of what Andreas you remove many of the weeds from his pearls of wisdom, you'll get used to it.


these should help you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP9-lAYngi4&list=PLEUe0yAulQTtJp-KuUVxx_acD0B4cOh7o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd9C9TQ3pWY&list=PLEUe0yAulQTtJp-KuUVxx_acD0B4cOh7o

and the best of the three is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0cGvUFBNEQ&list=PLEUe0yAulQTtJp-KuUVxx_acD0B4cOh7o

[BittBurger]

Yeah, he was just discussing the proper way to store coins, and it did include a cycling of things every so often. 

Testing the functions, testing your passphrase, etc ... which ... to me is just plain asking for trouble.  I like to leave things alone.

I can't find it.  Just wasted 45 minutes on Lets Talk Bitcoin site. 

[ivroer]

I've listened to many recordings where Andreas has been talking about paper wallets (LTB, Hangouts, lectures at local meetups etc).

For the most part I've heard him repeating a common community guideline; that is you should never re-use (refill) a paper wallet address, especially if that paper wallet is going to store a value that is "significant" to you. Of course, each person needs to decide on a trade-off between security and convenience; if your paper wallet never exceeds an "insignificant" value then you're probably going to accept the risk of reuse. I think the latter example will soon be superseded by the popularity of dedicated hardware wallets such as Trezor.

Back to the OP: I do have a vague recollection that Andreas has made suggestions that you might want to - for peace of mind - occasionally validate paper wallets, and if that involves importing private keys anywhere, then the balance should then be transferred to a new paper wallet.

You have to remember that Andreas has a professional background as a Network Engineer and Info Security roles, good operational security will be second nature to him and therefore as a Bitcoin evangelist he's trying to provoke thought for non security-savvy people by suggesting a paranoid security approach. I doubt that he believes that a majority of people will follow his advice, but he might be hoping that some people try just a little bit harder to secure their digital wealth; removing some of the low hanging fruit that is available to thieves.

TL;DR: Never re-use high value "savings" paper wallets. Re-use everyday "beer fund" paper wallets, but there's always a risk of "pick pockets".

[Meuh6879]

i change wallet every 10 lines in bitcoin-QT ... to simplify the view.
i transfer the last sum to my smartphone (0,0002 fee) ... and then, on a new bitcoin-QT crypted wallet (0,0002 fee).

with this, you can "consolidate" the sum in 1 transfer (no many little receive payments).
take less overhead on bitcoin network (fee low).

[corebob]

Ok ill update this thread when i find it.   The reason I posted is because I was reading this thread, and the person said nearly the same thing:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=493803.msg5442741#msg5442741

"To be anonymous, change your wallets from time to time"

Reminded me of whatever it was Andreas said recently.

I swear Andreas said to move your coins around periodically.  Not necessarily "often".

Gimme a few...

I wonder if anonymity would be better served by an altcoin like DarkCoin anyway. They seem to have gotten DarkSend up and running on the testnet.
I'm not sure a single coin will be able to please everyone's needs