Receiving & Change Addresses

[Bitcoiner2023]

Hey Guys,
short question.


What is better to use for my Wallets ?
Receiving Addresses or Change Addresses ?


Best regards

[1715374286]

1715374286

[1715374286]

1715374286

[1715374286]

1715374286

[1715374286]

1715374286

[Charles-Tim]

You can use any of the two, but ideally you suppose to use receiving address, change address is when you make transaction, the remaining coins not spent in the transaction would be sent to your change address, that is how it works.

[LoyceV]

What is better to use for my Wallets ?
Receiving Addresses or Change Addresses ?

It's best to use the wallet as intended, so use the former to receive funds. It's kinda in the name.

[Bitcoiner2023]

What is better to use for my Wallets ?
Receiving Addresses or Change Addresses ?

It's best to use the wallet as intended, so use the former to receive funds. It's kinda in the name.

You can use any of the two, but ideally you suppose to use receiving address, change address is when you make transaction, the remaining coins not spent in the transaction would be sent to your change address, that is how it works.

Are there any pros and cons between these 2 addresses?

I know how it work:
With receiving address I send 0.05btc and get 0.01btc back to my receiving address and can continue to pay directly with it.
With changing address I send 0.05 btc and get 0.01 btc back to my chaning address but can't do anything with it until it has been confirmed.

That's why I see the chaning address as a disadvantage, but it must also have some advantages that you don't have with the receiving address


Best regards

[Charles-Tim]

Change address and receiving address have no advantages or disadvantages, they are both your addresses.

With receiving address I send 0.05btc and get 0.01btc back to my receiving address change address and can continue to pay directly with it.
With changing address I send 0.05 btc and get 0.01 btc back to my chaning address but can't do anything with it until it has been confirmed.

To be able to spend unconfirmed transactions depends on your wallet.

[hosseinimr93]

Your understanding is not correct.
Given your previous posts, I assume you are using electrum.
Electrum allow you to spend unconfirmed coins whether they are in change addresses or receiving addresses. Just make sure "Spend only confirmed coins" is unchecked.

[Bitcoiner2023]

Change address and receiving address have no advantages or disadvantages, they are both your addresses.

With receiving address I send 0.05btc and get 0.01btc back to my receiving address change address and can continue to pay directly with it.
With changing address I send 0.05 btc and get 0.01 btc back to my chaning address but can't do anything with it until it has been confirmed.

To be able to spend unconfirmed transactions depends on your wallet.

I don't understand why there are these 2 types of addresses doesn't make sense for me

Your understanding is not correct.
Given your previous posts, I assume you are using electrum.
Electrum allow you to spend unconfirmed coins whether they are in change addresses or receiving addresses. Just make sure "Spend only confirmed coins" is unchecked.

Thanks for the tip, I didn't know that

[hosseinimr93]

I don't understand why there are these 2 types of addresses doesn't make sense for me

Due to privacy reasons, it's always recommended to not reuse addresses.

Assume that there is no change address in electrum and your receiving addresses are used for receiving the changes.
You have fund in address A and you make a transaction. Electrum uses address B as the change address while you have already given the address B to someone to receive a payment.
What will happen? Address B will be reused and that's not recommended.

You have the change addresses, so that you don't use them for receiving fund and you can protect your privacy.

[Bitcoiner2023]

I don't understand why there are these 2 types of addresses doesn't make sense for me

Due to privacy reasons, it's always recommended to not reuse addresses.

Assume that there is no change address in electrum and your receiving addresses are used for receiving the changes.
You have fund in address A and you make a transaction. Electrum uses address B as the change address while you have already given the address B to someone to receive a payment.
What will happen? Address B will be reused and that's not recommended.

You have the change addresses, so that you don't use them for receiving fund and you can protect your privacy.

That sounds logical.

So I always use other receiving addresses and the changing addresses are automatically used by electrum for the changing.
With this i guarantee that I only give my addresses to people i choose myself.

What could happen if I use my receiving addresses more than once, you say you shouldn't use an address more than once for privacy reasons, what could happen?

[hosseinimr93]

What could happen if I use my receiving addresses more than once, you say you shouldn't use an address more than once for privacy reasons, what could happen?

You can use any bitcoin address as many times as you want without any security issue.
As I already said, it's recommended to not reuse addresses due to privacy reasons.

If you give the same address to several people, any of those people can check your other transactions. Take note that all bitcoin transactions are public.

[Bitcoiner2023]

What could happen if I use my receiving addresses more than once, you say you shouldn't use an address more than once for privacy reasons, what could happen?

You can use any bitcoin address as many times as you want without any security issue.
As I already said, it's recommended to not reuse addresses due to privacy reasons.

If you give the same address to several people, any of those people can check your other transactions. Take note that all bitcoin transactions are public.

I just read an article that says:
In certain cases attackers could extract private keys from signatures, so you should always use other addresses.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/for-better-security-do-not-reuse-bitcoin-addresses#:~:text=Only%20using%20Bitcoin%20addresses%20one,can%20result%20in%20negative%20outcomes.&text=Jul%201%2C%202022-,Only%20using%20Bitcoin%20addresses%20one%20time%20is%20best%20practice.,can%20result%20in%20negative%20outcomes.

But does that only apply to receiving or also to sending addresses ?

Does electrum automatically create new receiving and sending addresses for each transaction ?

[hosseinimr93]

I just read an article that says:
In certain cases attackers could extract private keys from signatures, so you should always use other addresses.

As I said, there is no problem with reusing addresses, when it comes to your security.

Does electrum automatically create new receiving and sending addresses for each transaction ?

Electrum generates numerous receiving addresses and change addresses for you and you can see them on "Addresses" tab. (If you don't see "Addresses" tab, click on "View" at top of the window and select "Show addresses".
Every time you request a new address on "Receive" tab, electrum gives you a new address which is one of the receiving addresses shows on "Addresses" tab.

[dzungmobile]

What is change address? Read to know
You can use change address or not, but you should for privacy of your transactions.

Some block explorers have privacy scores for your transactions like Blockchair.com
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/privacy-o-meter

Blockstream.info
https://blockstream.info/

If you check your transaction privacy score, check with Tor.

[Bitcoiner2023]

What is change address? Read to know
You can use change address or not, but you should for privacy of your transactions.

Some block explorers have privacy scores for your transactions like Blockchair.com
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/privacy-o-meter

Blockstream.info
https://blockstream.info/

If you check your transaction privacy score, check with Tor.

Thank you, I read everything.

I have one last question.

Should I send my bitcoins back to my receiving address on the change address, or just leave them there?

[dzungmobile]

I doubt you read everything.

Should I send my bitcoins back to my receiving address on the change address, or just leave them there?

You should not.

Please think. Why do you use change address rather than your initial address but later sending coin back to your initial address?

If you do this, you should not use change address at beginning.

What you want to do is consolidation from some change address inputs if you have them and you can consolidate your inputs to another new address if you want.

[Bitcoiner2023]

I doubt you read everything.

Should I send my bitcoins back to my receiving address on the change address, or just leave them there?

You should not.

Please think. Why do you use change address rather than your initial address but later sending coin back to your initial address?

If you do this, you should not use change address at beginning.

What you want to do is consolidation from some change address inputs if you have them and you can consolidate your inputs to another new address if you want.

You're right, that wouldn't make any sense and would destroy my privacy.
I think the best and easiest solution would be to leave the amount on the change address.

But as far as I understood correctly, I would have to take a new backup at some point after many payments to secure the xPrv.
Except for an HD wallet, there I would not have to constantly make new backups, because everything there is backed up by the seed even after 1,000,000 payments.
Am I right with that?

If yes:
After I restore my wallet with the Seed, does electrum automatically give me the change address where my coins are?

If not:
How do i get access to my change address when restoring and it is not visible in the wallet?

[hosseinimr93]

I think the best and easiest solution would be to leave the amount on the change address.

You are right, unless you have many small inputs and you want to consolidate them when you can make transaction with low fee.
Note that with consolidating your inputs, you link them together and you may hurt your privacy.

Am I right with that?

All your private keys can be derived from your seed phrase and that's all you need.

After I restore my wallet with the Seed, does electrum automatically give me the change address where my coins are?

Yes.

[Bitcoiner2023]

I think the best and easiest solution would be to leave the amount on the change address.

You are right, unless you have many small inputs and you want to consolidate them when you can make transaction with low fee.
Note that with consolidating your inputs, you link them together and you may hurt your privacy.

Am I right with that?

All your private keys can be derived from your seed phrase and that's all you need.

After I restore my wallet with the Seed, does electrum automatically give me the change address where my coins are?

Yes.

Thanks very much,

what if I only have the seed and switch my wallet to Sparrow,
I could imagine that some addresses are not displayed, how do I make these addresses visible on another wallet if i only have the seed?

How does it work with a Watch Only address, do I just need to insert the xPub and then i can see all the coins from every receiving and change address that come from this xPub?

[nc50lc]

what if I only have the seed and switch my wallet to Sparrow,
I could imagine that some addresses are not displayed, how do I make these addresses visible on another wallet if i only have the seed?

How does it work with a Watch Only address, do I just need to insert the xPub and then i can see all the coins from every receiving and change address that come from this xPub?

Sparrow wallet has an "Addresses" tab where the change and receiving addresses are listed.
You can change the gap limit in "Settings->Advanced->Gap limit" to view more in case it isn't synced.

For watching-only, it depends on the master key imported to create the watch-only wallet,
but mostly all, including electrum, the 'xPub' is the "account extended public key" so it should be able to derive both the receiving and change addresses.

[hosseinimr93]

what if I only have the seed and switch my wallet to Sparrow,

Take note that the seed phrase generated by electrum can't be imported to sparrow wallet directly. Electrum generates the seed phrase using its own algorithm and you can only import BIP39 seed phrase in sparrow.
If you want to import your electrum wallet to sparrow, you should import your wallet file.