Can bitcoin address be changed by a wallet?

[Curious T]

So I've been doing a lot of reading on bitcoin privacy a lot lately, and I've got a question. I'm not sure if this is the right board for this, but I feel it is.

So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?
I mean can the wallet simply change the address at the request of the owner with verification like the seed phase, of course? Then on the blockchain the new address will not show where the bitcoin came from and the old wallet will just show $0 balance without showing where the coins where sent to?

 

[Frankolala]

So I've been doing a lot of reading on bitcoin privacy a lot lately, and I've got a question. I'm not sure if this is the right board for this, but I feel it is.

So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?
I mean can the wallet simply change the address at the request of the owner with verification like the seed phase, of course? Then on the blockchain the new address will not show where the bitcoin came from and the old wallet will just show $0 balance without showing where the coins where sent to?

 

Yes electrum wallet, blue wallets can change your bitcoin address to a new one for you to use to receive your bitcoin, and the new address which you are using to receive bitcoin will reflect on the blockchain. Bitcoin blockchain is transparent and every address with bitcoin in it will be on the blockchain because that's where your bitcoin is stored. It's just like a bank. Your cash is stored in the bank and you can use your atm card or cash book to send money to another account which the money must reflect in the account.

[_act_]

That is not possible if you mean for someone to move the coin to another address and with no one knowing about the new address he moved it to. Every transactions are available on the blockchain.

The person can use coinjoin to block the trace.

[fikrett]

So I've been doing a lot of reading on bitcoin privacy a lot lately, and I've got a question. I'm not sure if this is the right board for this, but I feel it is.

So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?
I mean can the wallet simply change the address at the request of the owner with verification like the seed phase, of course? Then on the blockchain the new address will not show where the bitcoin came from and the old wallet will just show $0 balance without showing where the coins where sent to?

 

Yes electrum wallet, blue wallets can change your bitcoin address to a new one for you to use to receive your bitcoin, and the new address which you are using to receive bitcoin will reflect on the blockchain.

But would it be traced, the funds that got onto the new address, so to speak?

[_act_]

But would it be traced, the funds that got onto the new address, so to speak?

Frankolala did not answer your question correctly. Read what I posted above which is the answer that supposed to be given. Your coins can be traced on the blockchain unless you use some means to block the trace. Coinjoin is the best while mixers are also good. No KYC exchanges can also be helpful.

[fikrett]

But would it be traced, the funds that got onto the new address, so to speak?

Frankolala did not answer your question correctly. Read what I posted above which is the answer that supposed to be given. Your coins can be traced on the blockchain unless you use some means to block the trace. Coinjoin is the best while mixers are also good. No KYC exchanges can also be helpful.

Thanks, I think I've slipped that detail out, I just never did such a process myself - and if it's done automatically (the funds just go to a newly created address, the previous one is drained, perhaps), how one may even try to hide the tracks..

[Frankolala]

But would it be traced, the funds that got onto the new address, so to speak?

Frankolala did not answer your question correctly. Read what I posted above which is the answer that supposed to be given. Your coins can be traced on the blockchain unless you use some means to block the trace. Coinjoin is the best while mixers are also good. No KYC exchanges can also be helpful.

What do you mean that I didn't give the right answer to the OP. The OP didn't mention if coins can be traced or not. He only asked if the new wallet with his bitcoin wouldn't reflect on the blockchain. If you like use any coinjoin service or mixer, your transaction cannot be traced but your bitcoin in your new wallet will be in the blockchain.

You only answered fikrett which was not part of the OP.

[OmegaStarScream]

When receiving, it's better to receive in different bitcoin addresses as mentioned above. The more you use one address, the easier it is to identity you and your holdings while when you're using different addresses, that becomes a bit more difficult.

But to answer your question, who are you trying to hide your tracks from? Another individual? If so, then going through an instant exchange like exch (or any centralized service really) would be more than enough.

[peter0425]

So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?

Every transaction will always be present on the blockchain. The only way to hide the transaction is if you used a mixer service so your transaction will be mixed in with other transactions to only show as one transaction on the blockchain.

I mean can the wallet simply change the address at the request of the owner with verification like the seed phase, of course? Then on the blockchain the new address will not show where the bitcoin came from and the old wallet will just show $0 balance without showing where the coins where sent to?

The wallet can’t just change the address that’s already on the blockchain but the wallet can generate a new address.

[PrivacyG]

There is no way a transaction can just poof out of the Blockchain like that.  The ledger records everything and the closest thing you can do is use a second layer.  This can not happen on the main layer.

What you are asking is that Alice creates another address pretending to be Bob and Alice sends money to fake Bob without anybody knowing that Alice spent anything or that Bob received anything.  It is impossible.

Besides second layer, you can use Coin Joins or redirect the Bitcoin through Monero.  Even then however, there is still a transaction showing that Alice spent her money through a Coin Join and fake Bob received his money from somewhere.  Be it directly from the Coin Join or not, the transaction will show up.  This method only removes a direct link between Alice and fake Bob.

[BlackBoss_]

So I've been doing a lot of reading on bitcoin privacy a lot lately, and I've got a question. I'm not sure if this is the right board for this, but I feel it is.

If you are carelessly shared things on Internet, it will be there forever and your privacy lost forever and can not be resumed.

So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?

It is impossible because you missed an important point about Bitcoin blockchain. It is a public blockchain, not a private blockchain and all transactions are publicly and traceable by everyone.

This explains why hackers in famous cases will be caught when they moved stolen bitcoin in known addresses to a centralized exchange. Their stolen bitcoin will be frozen by exchange and wait for further action from governments.

If you care about privacy, read many documents on it in Bitcoin Privacy Guides.

[Slimzeee]

So I've been doing a lot of reading on bitcoin privacy a lot lately, and I've got a question. I'm not sure if this is the right board for this, but I feel it is.

So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?
I mean can the wallet simply change the address at the request of the owner with verification like the seed phase, of course? Then on the blockchain the new address will not show where the bitcoin came from and the old wallet will just show $0 balance without showing where the coins where sent to?

 

Yes electrum wallet, blue wallets can change your bitcoin address to a new one for you to use to receive your bitcoin, and the new address which you are using to receive bitcoin will reflect on the blockchain. Bitcoin blockchain is transparent and every address with bitcoin in it will be on the blockchain because that's where your bitcoin is stored. It's just like a bank. Your cash is stored in the bank and you can use your atm card or cash book to send money to another account which the money must reflect in the account.

I’m curious to know more about this, does this mean the new address will only be affected, or if they decide to send using the previous address link, It still reflects on the new wallet or becomes invalid. If BTC is sent to the old wallet by mistake, what’s happens to it?

[Ruttoshi]

So I've been doing a lot of reading on bitcoin privacy a lot lately, and I've got a question. I'm not sure if this is the right board for this, but I feel it is.

So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?
I mean can the wallet simply change the address at the request of the owner with verification like the seed phase, of course? Then on the blockchain the new address will not show where the bitcoin came from and the old wallet will just show $0 balance without showing where the coins where sent to?

 

Yes electrum wallet, blue wallets can change your bitcoin address to a new one for you to use to receive your bitcoin, and the new address which you are using to receive bitcoin will reflect on the blockchain. Bitcoin blockchain is transparent and every address with bitcoin in it will be on the blockchain because that's where your bitcoin is stored. It's just like a bank. Your cash is stored in the bank and you can use your atm card or cash book to send money to another account which the money must reflect in the account.

I’m curious to know more about this, does this mean the new address will only be affected, or if they decide to send using the previous address link, It still reflects on the new wallet or becomes invalid. If BTC is sent to the old wallet by mistake, what’s happens to it?

I don't fully understand your question. If you send your funds to the new address, your bitcoin will be in the new address on the blockchain. However, you can still use your old address will still be valid and bitcoin can be sent to your old address. Bitcoin wallwt address does not expire but it's good not to reuse one same address to receive bitcoin.

[john_egbert]

I don't fully understand your question. If you send your funds to the new address, your bitcoin will be in the new address on the blockchain. However, you can still use your old address will still be valid and bitcoin can be sent to your old address. Bitcoin wallwt address does not expire but it's good not to reuse one same address to receive bitcoin.

So there would be two address to use? I though the old one (the one being changed) would be not usable afterward..

[PrivacyG]

So there would be two address to use? I though the old one (the one being changed) would be not usable afterward..

Yes, old wallet addresses can still be used.  For example, I have two wallet addresses on my profile.  If you look them up, you will notice they have received a couple transactions both during my time on this forum.  I can spend from it as many times as I want.  The reason your old address is 'changing' is because it is a good practice for your privacy.

My privacy situation is really bad.  I am PrivacyG, I shared a set of two addresses and I received a ton of transactions to them.  They are all linked to one address, meaning they are all mine with zero doubts and everybody looking up my address knows it.

The reason I do not care is because it would be really hard to change the address linked to my forum account every single time I had to receive a payment.  It would not only be significantly more complicated but in my opinion a waste of time.  I could change my address 100 times, it will still show up particularly under the 'PrivacyG' username.

But privately, I am using new addresses every time.  This is because things are harder to supervise that way by a third party.  Although there are now Blockchain Analysis companies doing particularly this and trying to put together all our transactions to link them to identities, it is still a better practice than re using the same address over and over again.  It is a complicated subject and I could write an entire book about it, but to shorten the length of the story this is simply a very good privacy practice.

[EL MOHA]

I’m curious to know more about this, does this mean the new address will only be affected, or if they decide to send using the previous address link, It still reflects on the new wallet or becomes invalid. If BTC is sent to the old wallet by mistake, what’s happens to it?

One thing you need to understand is bitcoin is not stored on an address but rather on public ledger called the blockchain. As such all your addresses are permanently recorded too on the blockchain. So for example if there is a bitcoin sent to an address, this transaction is recorded and should this same bitcoin been moved to another address the transaction is still recorded, is the old address now render useless? No it is not it can still receive bitcoin just like it was before, will the transaction between the two addresses be visible, yes it will be showing that you send bitcoin from that old address to new the address, so if the new address is attached to your identity then with the blockchain showing the bitcoin from the address is moved to the new one then everyone will know it belongs to you.

The only way you can simply hide the movement of this bitcoin from the old address to the new address is simply by using co-joins or all this mixers, where you sent bitcoin to the mixer and they actually sent back to you from another source, thereby eliminating direct transfer between your two wallets.

What to do about privacy in the first place is simply to use different addresses to receive new bitcoin, do not use one address always as the sender will get to use this to get your privacy and even know the amount such address holds

[Ronsbit]

When it comes to transaction on blockchain, it must be recorded on the ledger but there are some wallets that can change wallets for instance, the transaction would not show the exact destination but  it is recorded on chain and wallets that does such is electrum, blue wallet just like the some members had mentioned here. Another thing is that if you do a transaction with the above mentioned wallets and there are still balance left on it, when you check that same wallet, you would see the coin but when you change the wallet through the explorer, you would not see anything there but the coin is still there. that has been my experience with the wallet.

[seoincorporation]

So I've been doing a lot of reading on bitcoin privacy a lot lately, and I've got a question. I'm not sure if this is the right board for this, but I feel it is.

So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?
I mean can the wallet simply change the address at the request of the owner with verification like the seed phase, of course? Then on the blockchain the new address will not show where the bitcoin came from and the old wallet will just show $0 balance without showing where the coins where sent

If you move the coins from one address to other then the transaction will be logged in the blockchain and anyone will be able to track those coins, the only way to lose that track is by making a depo in a service like a casino or a exchange and then withdraw to the new address.

Remeber that you can have multiple addresses in one wallet.

[YOSHIE]

Can bitcoin address be changed by a wallet?

I don't know whether you are new here or you are new to Bitcoin wallet and how it works.

As far as I know the question you ask is public and often submitted by beginners, yes is common, embarrassed to ask heretics on the road, maybe you are lazy to find topics like this:
1. Topic: Electrum and change addresses
2. Topic: HD wallets and change addresses
3. Topic: Paper wallets and change addresses. Please help me understand a warning

And many other topics, that's an example.

However, you don't need to worry about it, you will find the answer in detail below, I hope to help you as a whole.

Please read: Can the cryptocurrency address linked to a wallet be changed? If so, what is the process for changing it?

[Pi-network314159]

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So let's assume an address has been made public and everybody knows who that address belongs to, can the owner decide to change that address and move his coins to another address without it showing on the bitcoin blockchain?

i get your point, what you are trying to say is that if you have two bitcoin address and one is known by many, and you received bitcoin to wallet A and you want send your coin from wallet A to wallet B without without trace on the blockchain that will it be possible right ? well there is no transaction made in the blockchain technology that is not store in the blockchain or public ledger. the only way you transaction can remain unidentified is by using mixer service. although i have not made any transaction using mixer but from discovery mixer is the only way to make a transaction untraceable.