Need a little help to understand Electrum

[AB de Royse777]

When I created a wallet using Electrum I noticed there were 26 addresses including the change addresses. I created this Electrum wallet long ago. Other day I noticed the addresses there became 33. There are some new addresses there which were not in the first place.

My question is that how does an Electrum wallet generate new address?

I hope my question makes good sense and does not sound stupid. Recently I am learning a lot about Bitcoin wallet since I have started to run my own full node. It's fun by the way.

Cheers :-)

[1714809029]

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[1714809029]

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[Abdussamad]

it'll automatically create new addresses as you start receiving money to new ones.  all addresses are generated from your seed.

[AB de Royse777]

it'll automatically create new addresses as you start receiving money to new ones.  all addresses are generated from your seed.

Yh, it looks like that it is generating new addresses but I was not aware that it does when it starts receiving coins.

Is there any ratio like x:y?
I mean what is the algorithm to generate new addresses?

[Abdussamad]

addresses are generated according to a sequence. each address has an index number for example 0,1,2 etc. electrum generates new addresses such that if you were to arrange your addresses in ascending order of index number you would have at least 20 unused receive addresses at the end of your wallet. that number 20 is called the gap limit. the gap limit for change addresses is 6 and functions similarly.

for example you start a new wallet and you have 20 receive and 6 change addresses. you use address with index 18 (19th in the list) to receive bitcoin. electrum will generate 19 new addresses starting with index 20 so now you have 39 receive addresses  and 6 change ones.

[AB de Royse777]

addresses are generated according to a sequence. each address has an index number for example 0,1,2 etc. electrum generates new addresses such that if you were to arrange your addresses in ascending order of index number you would have at least 20 unused receive addresses at the end of your wallet. that number 20 is called the gap limit. the gap limit for change addresses is 6 and functions similarly.

for example you start a new wallet and you have 20 receive and 6 change addresses. you use address with index 18 (19th in the list) to receive bitcoin. electrum will generate 19 new addresses starting with index 20 so now you have 39 receive addresses  and 6 change ones.

Ok now it started to make sense. Thank you very much.

All those days I was wondering what if I use all these 20 addresses? Finally it gives me the answer that I can use as many address as I want from a wallet that was generated using Electrum.

+2 merit for you bud

Cheers :-)

[Abdussamad]

you should use a different address for every transaction.