Don't tell me that this is coincidence

[YellowSwap]

Is this even possible?

I was playing around with ninjastic.space today and came across something that ive never thought to be possible until now.  Someone needs to explain to me how this person end up with a Bitcoin address that has it's username imprinted into the address itself.  I thought I know many things, I am just laughing myself because I know nothing.



Explain to me how Ffrankie has 1Frankiee in is Bitcoin address or there are Bitcoin wallet address that can do this? Don't tell me that this is coincidence. 

Imagine having this the ability to stick your username in your Bitcoin address 

[Zaguru12]

That’s a vanity address and the characters  were custom choosen by the owner. Unlike the regular bitcoin addresses that has prefixes like, 1, 3,  bc1q and bc1p you actually have custom characters as your own name. Person I do not actually think it’s safe to actually use vanity address for large bitcoin storage or cold storage bitcoin, mostly because of enough entropy for seedphrase generation
 You can visit threads below of you’re interested

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5096373.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5523103.msg64857209#msg64857209

[mocacinno]

As an addition, here's a page on the wiki you can read: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen

And as a warning: make sure you don't just "buy" a vanity address, or use an unknown vanity address generator. If you "buy" a vanity address, the creator is giving you a private key he generated, so he is also able to spend any inputs funding the vanity address he sold you.

In case you're interested, i showed how to build and vanitysearch inside a docker container a while ago:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5523103.msg64857209#msg64857209

[YellowSwap]

As an addition, here's a page on the wiki you can read: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen

And as a warning: make sure you don't just "buy" a vanity address, or use an unknown vanity address generator. If you "buy" a vanity address, the creator is giving you a private key he generated, so he is also able to spend any inputs funding the vanity address he sold you.

In case you're interested, i showed how to build and vanitysearch inside a docker container a while ago:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5523103.msg64857209#msg64857209

I am not trying to buy any vanity address, I just want to know what this is all about.

Thank you for explaining, I never knew that there is something called vanity address, like I've said I was surprised myself that somehow this is even possible but since it is vanity address then it is not safe, better that I know now than not knowing, this will benefit not only me because I am sure that many don't know about vanity address.

[TryNinja]

but since it is vanity address then it is not safe

What do you mean it is not safe? AFAIK if you generate your vanity address locally and with the right software, it's no less secure then your regular btc address.

I myself have a vanity address, though I don't hold any coins on it because I've changed wallets many times.

[BlackHatCoiner]

And as a warning: make sure you don't just "buy" a vanity address, or use an unknown vanity address generator. If you "buy" a vanity address, the creator is giving you a private key he generated, so he is also able to spend any inputs funding the vanity address he sold you.

Just a minor addition: yes, "buying" a vanity address (i.e., someone else brute-forcing the address for you) poses the obvious risk that he can take your bitcoin if he knows the private key, but there's a roundabout way to be sure he can brute-force the address without knowing the private key. It's called Split-key vanity address.

In short, Alice gives Bob (the vanity address miner) public key X. Bob brute-forces public keys by practicing elliptic curve addition on X. At some point, he will find a public key (Y) which when added on X will result in the requested address. The magic of elliptic curve math is that Alice can add private keys of X and Y and get the private key of X+Y, while Bob cannot.

(for someone who did not know this is possible, it's a nice way to learn more about elliptic curve cryptography.)

[Floxynice]

but since it is vanity address then it is not safe

What do you mean it is not safe? AFAIK if you generate your vanity address locally and with the right software, it's no less secure then your regular btc address.

I myself have a vanity address, though I don't hold any coins on it because I've changed wallets many times.

I have read a few things about vanity addresses before and I think the problem with vanity addresses lies in the fact that many people who try to generate it always try to trust third parties or pass through shortcuts to generate the address. For those who cannot go through the stress of generating the address offline or don't know the right sources to generate it, it will still be considered unsafe for them.

[TryNinja]

I have read a few things about vanity addresses before and I think the problem with vanity addresses lies in the fact that many people who try to generate it always try to trust third parties or pass through shortcuts to generate the address. For those who cannot go through the stress of generating the address offline or don't know the right sources to generate it, it will still be considered unsafe for them.

Yeah, but that's like saying bitcoin addresses are not safe because you can also let someone else do it for you.

I've used the split-key method mentioned above to generate addresses to someone on the Portuguese board. I couldn't steal his coins even if I wanted to.

[nakamura12]

I am not trying to buy any vanity address, I just want to know what this is all about.

Thank you for explaining, I never knew that there is something called vanity address, like I've said I was surprised myself that somehow this is even possible but since it is vanity address then it is not safe, better that I know now than not knowing, this will benefit not only me because I am sure that many don't know about vanity address.

It will only happens when a person wants to have their username on the address like what you just saw but if a person doesn't want to do it then that's what you see most of the time where wallet address have bc1 or different. Well, vanity address may not be safe of you let others do it for you but if you do it offline or the method that TryNinja said then it's safe. Anyway, what makes you think that it's not safe?. Is it because a person may use software that may take your data?.

[DPHOR]

As an addition, here's a page on the wiki you can read: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen

And as a warning: make sure you don't just "buy" a vanity address, or use an unknown vanity address generator. If you "buy" a vanity address, the creator is giving you a private key he generated, so he is also able to spend any inputs funding the vanity address he sold you.

In case you're interested, i showed how to build and vanitysearch inside a docker container a while ago:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5523103.msg64857209#msg64857209

I think this is my second time seeing someone whose username was used as the beginning of the address they has. To be honest there is no anonymity over as someone could be tracked or traced through that address that is attached with their username. Before I was thinking it is that safe to use their username on the beginning of their wallet.

[Alphakilo]

As an addition, here's a page on the wiki you can read: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen

And as a warning: make sure you don't just "buy" a vanity address, or use an unknown vanity address generator. If you "buy" a vanity address, the creator is giving you a private key he generated, so he is also able to spend any inputs funding the vanity address he sold you.

In case you're interested, i showed how to build and vanitysearch inside a docker container a while ago:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5523103.msg64857209#msg64857209

I think this is my second time seeing someone whose username was used as the beginning of the address they has. To be honest there is no anonymity over as someone could be tracked or traced through that address that is attached with their username. Before I was thinking it is that safe to use their username on the beginning of their wallet.

I have only come across this kind of format once and didn't pay attention to it until now where I see it even used.
The vanity wallet will have its pros and cons and the major con is as long a user pay some fees to get the address generated according to their format and even have to trust a third party person with your private keys in order to get this done, it isn't safe.
It is most safest to generate this address by yourself while running the software offline and this will help keep your private keys safer than paying someone to do it for you.

[coolcoinz]

I think this is my second time seeing someone whose username was used as the beginning of the address they has. To be honest there is no anonymity over as someone could be tracked or traced through that address that is attached with their username. Before I was thinking it is that safe to use their username on the beginning of their wallet.

It used to be very popular back in the day when you could actually mine it yourself. Accounts from 2014 and before often had these addresses in their profiles and signatures.

AFAIK there was a problem with one of these vanity making sites where they would create keys for you but also copy them and later if you deposited anything to that address the coins would magically disappear

[Z-tight]

I think this is my second time seeing someone whose username was used as the beginning of the address they has. To be honest there is no anonymity over as someone could be tracked or traced through that address that is attached with their username.

Can you track or trace me with my username Z-tight? Nope, no chance at all. Can you track or trace me if i create a BTC Vanity address that begins with 1Z-tight? Still no. So what privacy risk are you talking about, none exists.

[DiMarxist]

This is really amusing. Adding a username in a Bitcoin address. Probably it was at the first time when the Blockchain was coming up to it popularity. And I don't think that can still happened. Though I have seen custom seed phrase and not custom address. Well Blockchain is deep and we are only at the periphery. If this was possible in the popular non custodial wallets, I would have tried it.

[Wapfika]

@LoyceV has a thread dedicated for this vanity address before which you can see a lot of requests for a customized address like this.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1813624.0

It’s a pretty wallet address but with some minor limitations on character that you can use.

[serjent05]

I think this is my second time seeing someone whose username was used as the beginning of the address they has. To be honest there is no anonymity over as someone could be tracked or traced through that address that is attached with their username. Before I was thinking it is that safe to use their username on the beginning of their wallet.

It used to be very popular back in the day when you could actually mine it yourself. Accounts from 2014 and before often had these addresses in their profiles and signatures.

Yeah, it was pretty popular back then. The creation of the address becomes harder and takes longer to create the longer the username is.  So I had mine with just 6 letters of my username missing the "e" and the "05". I have this for free from a site (can't remember since it was long ago) that creates a vanity addresses .

AFAIK there was a problem with one of these vanity making sites where they would create keys for you but also copy them and later if you deposited anything to that address the coins would magically disappear

Since many vanity addresses at that time were generated on a website (including mine), there is really a risk of losing any funds if the owner of that website turn rogue since he has the access on the keys of the address generated.  The site claims that keys were instantly deleted, but I do not buy it.

[PrivacyG]

It is not a coincidence.  But this is the perfect opportunity to learn about the Clipboard hack.  Bad people generate a LOT of Addresses and create a virus that replaces your copied Address with one from their list.  The first characters are identical to yours and sometimes even the last characters match.  This is why checking your Address multiple times before spending or receiving any Bitcoin is a very good habit to have.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Vanity addresses (generated locally) have their uses eg, I have one in my sig for donations as well as the one Sidehack uses for donations to him. As others have already said, Vanity addresses should NEVER be used for general storage.

Beyond things like that it is best to always use freshly generated addresses to receive BTC.

[Radin]

Damn, I was not aware of this. Even though I won’t use vanity adresses for obvious reasons, I still think that’s great

[pooya87]

Unlike the regular bitcoin addresses that has prefixes like, 1, 3,  bc1q and bc1p you actually have custom characters as your own name.

You made it complicated here.
Vanity addresses are regular bitcoin addresses and they also start with 1, 3 and bc1. They have the same character set as a regular address, they just create "personalized" addresses.

Person I do not actually think it’s safe to actually use vanity address for large bitcoin storage or cold storage bitcoin, mostly because of enough entropy for seedphrase generation

I think you mean "entropy" here not "seedphrase" because there is no seed phrase in a vanity address generation process (it is not a deterministic wallet). They can be as secure as any regular address as long as the code you are using is secure.

What they usually do is they start from a random entropy (just like you would when generating a regular random key) and then produce its corresponding address, if it contains the characters user wants, the code stops and prints the result. If not it increments the entropy and repeats the same thing. Incrementing the random entropy does not reduce its security.