IF I SEND BTC TO A FRIEND/FAMILY, DOES IT MEAN THEY CAN KNOW MY WALLET BALANCE?

[95Bolu]

If I transfer BTC to a friend/family, they now know my wallet address, correct? Does this mean they can see all the transactions I have done from that wallet? It seems like wallet information is public except for identity, but that would be forfeited once I make a transfer, right?

[o_e_l_e_o]

If I transfer BTC to a friend/family, they now know my wallet address, correct?

Yes, they can see the address(es) which sent them bitcoin.

Does this mean they can see all the transactions I have done from that wallet?

It depends. They can certainly see all the transactions you have made from that addresses, but not necessarily that wallet.

Most wallets are a collection of addresses. These addresses are not intrinsically linked to each other, and simply knowing one address in a wallet does not let someone deduce which other addresses belong to that wallet. If you use two or more addresses together in the same transaction, though, then that's a pretty strong indication that they are part of the same wallet.

For example. Let's say you send some coins from Address A and Address B to me in a single transaction. Most people seeing that transaction would rightly assume that Address A and Address B belonged to the same person. Next week, you send some other coins from Address A to a family member. That family member can see that Address A belongs to you, so can look back and see the other transactions which Address A has made, and be able to deduce that Address B also belongs to you. If next week you send some coins from a new address, Address C, to someone else, then your family member won't know about that address or transaction, unless you later link it back to either Address A or Address B.

The other possibility is that you make a transaction from Address D, and receive some coins back as change to Address E. If you later send those coins from Address E to your family member, then they might be able to work out that they were change from Address D, and link Address D back to you as well.

The simple answer is if you don't want anyone knowing about your other transactions, then never reuse addresses and be careful about spending change.

[NeuroticFish]

If I transfer BTC to a friend/family, they now know my wallet address, correct? Does this mean they can see all the transactions I have done from that wallet? It seems like wallet information is public except for identity, but that would be forfeited once I make a transfer, right?

If you use your own stand alone wallet, then indeed, it doesn't matter where you send funds to, the recipient will know the sender address. And all the transactions related to any address are publicly visible on any block explorer. But if you were careful, used separate addresses for various needs, didn't mix them, used different change address for all transactions and so on then the recipient will see only a tiny part of "the story".
So it depends a lot how you've used the wallet.

If you use an online wallet, it basically depends on how it's done. The custodian wallets are basically accounts on a platform and you don't really know where the funds are sent from when you make a transaction (may be or may not be that much related to you).

If you want to be on the safe side, you can indeed consider all info as visible.
Bitcoin is not anonymous.


The usual solutions for this are:
* use of mixers (if you do please make sure it's a reputed one and you've read the FAQ page first)
* try to lose track by exchanging the coins into something else and back (but fees and possibly KYC apply)
* send Monero or such, i.e. coins designed for anonymity (which I don't really think that's what you want in this case)

[noorman0]

-snip-
It seems like wallet information is public except for identity, but that would be forfeited once I make a transfer, right?

What do you mean by forfeited?
If that's your balance then yes, exactly it moved after it was sent. Whereas the transaction details history will never be forfeited from the blockchain, it is immutable.

[bitmover]

If I transfer BTC to a friend/family, they now know my wallet address, correct?

Yes, they can see the address(es) which sent them bitcoin.

...
The simple answer is if you don't want anyone knowing about your other transactions, then never reuse addresses and be careful about spending change.

[/quote]

I think if you just want to hide your balance from a family member who isn't a tech guy, you can just transfer a small amount to another address and then make a second transaction to the family member.

This first transaction will most likely "hide" your total balance, and people wnt be looking past transactions unless they really want to track you.
Ofc that is not the best way to have privacy, and the best is to use a bitcoin mixer. 

But I think it depends  on how much privacy you really want to achieve.

[DoublerHunter]

If I transfer BTC to a friend/family, they now know my wallet address, correct? Does this mean they can see all the transactions I have done from that wallet? It seems like wallet information is public except for identity, but that would be forfeited once I make a transfer, right?

^ BTC transaction was designed for having transparency and this is not all anonymity, it is pseudonymous. Once your identity is linked to that address your identity will be exposed and you can hide all your transactions not unless you will use third-party tools that can mix your coin before sending it to the destination that wants to hide, like suggested above it was a BTC mixer. All information in your wallet will be exposed too once they know what wallet address you have used. But I don't understand what is forfeited, no one can get it if that is your coin, remember always store your BTC in a wallet where you own the private key.

[hatshepsut93]

If I transfer BTC to a friend/family, they now know my wallet address, correct? Does this mean they can see all the transactions I have done from that wallet? It seems like wallet information is public except for identity, but that would be forfeited once I make a transfer, right?

It all depending on the structure of your wallet.

Imagine you have 1 address 1xxx that received 1 BTC one time. You have no choice but to use it and anyone receiving coins from you could assume that you had 1 BTC.

Now imagine that you received 0.25 BTC to the same 1xxx address 4 times. Sending someone 0.1 BTC would require only one of those outputs, but it would still reveal the rest of the outputs of the same address, and it will be practically like the first case.

Now imagine you received 0.25 BTC four times, but into a unique address every time. Now if you send your friend 0.1 BTC, they will only know that you owned 0.25 BTC and not know about the three other 0.25 BTC  coins. However, your friend will know about your 0.15 BTC change, and if you will later use it together with the other 0.25 BTC coins (for example to send someone 0.35 BTC), they will learn about them.

To have good privacy you need to use mixing services and manually select coins (UTXO - unspent transaction output) when you make a transaction.

[Luqman]

If it is an exchange wallet, it will be difficult to track your transaction on that wallet. Based on my experience, the deposit transaction from another wallet to our wallet in an exchange cannot be checked. This can be safe for you if you don't want your friends or your family to know your wallet balance. But if you use Metamask or MEW wallet, your transaction can be tracked.

[pooya87]

If it is an exchange wallet, it will be difficult to track your transaction on that wallet.

That is not a "wallet", it is an "account". Not to mention that you don't even own bitcoin when you store it with a third party, be it an exchange or a custodial wallet like Coibase. You just have a "promise" that the company that holds your bitcoins would give it to you whenever you asked, while they can refuse to for any arbitrary reason.
But you are right, since custodial "accounts" use their own "mixed" coins to fulfill the promise of converting the IOUs to bitcoin, it is not possible to see the user's balance.

[NotATether]

In short, only if you stored all your bitcoin in the one address.

If you distribute them to different bitcoin addresses, then only some of your balance will be discovered (some online wallets/platforms give you only one address as explained in the replies above).

[tranthidung]

• Protect your privacy
• Privacy-o-meter
• Change address
• Address reuse
• Enhanced privacy with Wasabi / Samourai wallet

Practically, to protect your privacy, you should avoid to reuse address. You should use change address and Coin Join transaction. With Wasabi wallet, you have both Coin Join transaction and Tor.

[cabron]

If I transfer BTC to a friend/family, they now know my wallet address, correct? Does this mean they can see all the transactions I have done from that wallet? It seems like wallet information is public except for identity, but that would be forfeited once I make a transfer, right?

You wouldn't be so alarmed if you just didn't do any transactions to a porn site.    Yes they may see all the transactions but you can always reason. 
Seriously I also worry but it looks like they are yet not interested in such things as checking out how much BTC I have in my wallet or what transactions I do with the wallet I have.

Spreading out your BTC to a different wallet or just send altcoins to them. I do trade which is why I just send from an exchange wallet whether BTC or altcoin. If they check that wallet out, they'd really assume I'm the richest.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If you use an online wallet, it basically depends on how it's done. The custodian wallets are basically accounts on a platform and you don't really know where the funds are sent from when you make a transaction (may be or may not be that much related to you).

The problem of course with this is the custodial platform can see every coin you own and every transaction you make using their platform. You might be able to hide all your other transactions from a cursory look by your family member as in OP's example, but you have zero privacy overall.

I think if you just want to hide your balance from a family member who isn't a tech guy, you can just transfer a small amount to another address and then make a second transaction to the family member.

I really wouldn't recommend this. If you are looking to hide your balance from a close family member, then likelihood is OP has a good reason for wanting to do so. A single intermediate address is trivial to see past for even a complete newbie with 10 minutes of time to read about how transactions work.

Seriously I also worry but it looks like they are yet not interested in such things as checking out how much BTC I have in my wallet or what transactions I do with the wallet I have.

Maybe they are not yet, but what about in the future. Everything you do with bitcoin is an immutable record. If you compromise your privacy now, then you will find it very difficult if not impossible to reclaim it in the future.

[molsewid]

If it is an exchange wallet, it will be difficult to track your transaction on that wallet. Based on my experience, the deposit transaction from another wallet to our wallet in an exchange cannot be checked. This can be safe for you if you don't want your friends or your family to know your wallet balance. But if you use Metamask or MEW wallet, your transaction can be tracked.

It didn't came to my mind the same concern as OP's concern because if we were going to talk about exchange wallet if someone or some of my relatives wanted to track down my crypto asset they would only going to see an specific amount and specific transaction I have don e but if I have disseminate my asset into different asset they woul not going to track it down. So far this I haven't take this as a primary concern because none of my relatives are being curious about tracking it down.

[cheezcarls]

If I transfer BTC to a friend/family, they now know my wallet address, correct? Does this mean they can see all the transactions I have done from that wallet? It seems like wallet information is public except for identity, but that would be forfeited once I make a transfer, right?

Of course as the blockchain itself of BTC is a distributed public ledger that is tamper-proof that can be seen by anyone, especially your close family members and friends once you have sent them some BTC or any other cryptocurrency. They can check the history of your transactions from the very beginning. That’s what crypto transactions are.

Unless you don’t want them to see your main wallet, you can simply create another Bitcoin wallet and deposit some BTC. But make sure the sender is not from your main wallet, but from an exchange. Or much better if you knew someone who do P2P transactions.

[NeuroticFish]

The problem of course with this is the custodial platform can see every coin you own and every transaction you make using their platform. You might be able to hide all your other transactions from a cursory look by your family member as in OP's example, but you have zero privacy overall.

Indeed, I was focused on OP problem and I didn't mention this important detail. Thanks for doing so.

I think if you just want to hide your balance from a family member who isn't a tech guy, you can just transfer a small amount to another address and then make a second transaction to the family member.

I did think on this "method", but I decided to not tell it because if somebody learns to look onto block explorer, it may get (rather fast) to understand such an easy move and get to follow OP funds (of course, depending on how good OP uses different addresses for different purposes - but I expect the worse in this, privacy wise).

[Slow death]

and why do you want to hide how many bitcoins you have? you don't trust the person you are sending bitcoins? if you don't trust it then use some mixer that will have more anonymity. although I would advise you not to be hard on people in your family unless they are criminals or liars or dangerous people

[Doell]

OP has to follow above directions because that's what's best for him ,actually the wallet market is also good ,but maybe later there other questions from your family and might think that "ownership of address exchange wallet is your wallet"

and why do you want to hide how many bitcoins you have? you don't trust the person you are sending bitcoins? if you don't trust it then use some mixer that will have more anonymity. although I would advise you not to be hard on people in your family unless they are criminals or liars or dangerous people

may it could be that OP wants to hide his assets because "sorry" family usually borrows money or something else social jealousy in the family !

[macson]

of course they will know the amount of assets you have and also your transactions because the bitcoin blockchain is an open book, very transparent.

and why do you want to hide how many bitcoins you have? you don't trust the person you are sending bitcoins? if you don't trust it then use some mixer that will have more anonymity. although I would advise you not to be hard on people in your family unless they are criminals or liars or dangerous people

i also think the same as you, why does op ask like that or does he/she have other intentions or goals "lol". 

[deadmousehat]

Because it is transparent, of course they will be able to see the balance and all transactions at that address. If you want to be anonymous, you can use methods such as using some mixers or sending them through an exchange.