Changing wallet address in every 3-8 years advisable

[goldkingcoiner]

I have been thinking about this lately and I want to share it as it becomes a something think about, although I don’t know important or how cool it’s for one to keep changing their wallet address. For instance, if I have some certain amount stored in an electrum wallet address and after 4 years I should be able to move it out to a hardware wallet address.

I want to know, does this improve and enhance our security level for our investment? Because nowadays the manner at which people are getting fished or hacked is becoming increasingly alarming which to me I felt it would be that better to either moved out our assets from wallet A to wallet B just to make sure our investment wouldn’t be a major target for others.

Your opinion are welcomed.

Switching wallet addresses might get confusing over time. Make sure you do not trip accidently when sending the coins to the new address. There are a multitude of ways that this could go wrong. Accident, a hacked copy/paste....

But it does have the advantage of not giving hackers the opportunity to get into your old wallets.

The best solution, for me, are airgapped wallets.

[MusaMohamed]

Switching wallet addresses might get confusing over time. Make sure you do not trip accidently when sending the coins to the new address. There are a multitude of ways that this could go wrong. Accident, a hacked copy/paste....

But it does have the advantage of not giving hackers the opportunity to get into your old wallets.

I understand what we're discussing about here but I think it is better if we try to use a right term for describing about it, it's changing from one wallet to another wallet, not about changing address to address. Because addresses can still belong to a same wallet, and moving bitcoin from one address to another address in a same wallet is not what we want to do in this security context.

The best solution, for me, are airgapped wallets.

Airgapped wallets are best but the wallets must be created rightly first. If your airgapped wallets were created from Coldcard, that's terrible and your bitcoin would have been stolen.

[Guide] Secure air-gapped crypto wallet storage method.

[SensitiveEyes]

Now you just need to ask yourself what is the reason why you are changing wallet in a space of 3 - 4 years time. If you think you wallet seed phrase have been compromised or their are attempt of scam or hack to your wallet then it is a good idea to change to a new wallet but if the wallet is kept and very safe their is no point to change your wallet at all time because it can affect you negatively. I believe in handling wallet in the best way and i think wallet is very sensitive and fragile which one needs to secure it in the best way abd changing wallet for no good reasons from time to time is risky and anything can happen.

Electrum’s a HD wallet so use a new address every time. Changing wallet addresses after they are used is better than changing every 3-8 years. You must change your wallet if you believe hacking is imminent like hackers know your seed phrase. There are no purposeful benefits to security if you change wallet addresses every 3-8 years. Safe keep of your computer helps wallet's security so use a good antivirus.

[hd49728]

Electrum’s a HD wallet so use a new address every time. Changing wallet addresses after they are used is better than changing every 3-8 years. You must change your wallet if you believe hacking is imminent like hackers know your seed phrase. There are no purposeful benefits to security if you change wallet addresses every 3-8 years. Safe keep of your computer helps wallet's security so use a good antivirus.

In the past, in Electrum wallet software allows users to choose "Use change address or don't use change address" with the software UI but now with latest versions, that option was no longer visible.

Electrum change addresses in Preferences.

Now if you want to do that, you must do it with Coin Console that is not usable with many people who are not too technical.

[Faisal2202]

I want to know, does this improve and enhance our security level for our investment? Because nowadays the manner at which people are getting fished or hacked is becoming increasingly alarming which to me I felt it would be that better to either moved out our assets from wallet A to wallet B just to make sure our investment wouldn’t be a major target for others.

Your opinion are welcomed.

Members have already hinted how important privacy is and how wallet reuse or spending can make you a target. But I suggest if you hold a lot of coins, and you don't want to be their major target, then you can break the trail using obfuscation tools and move your coins to different addresses instead of keeping them in one. This way, someone looking at your single wallet address won't see the coins lying in other addresses.

You can have a wallet with different deposit addresses, like Electrum, which you might know already. You have different addresses in it, but be aware when making a transaction. Don't combine bitcoins from two different addresses. This way, if someone knows one belongs to you, they can infer the other also belongs to you if you combine them.

I like the whole idea, though. There is no harm in doing it as far as I can tell.

[pawanjain]

I think that if you have generated your keys securely even once then you are good to hold it for a long term.
Transferring all your coins from one address to address might improve privacy but it might weaken your security if the keys are not generated in a secure environment.
What if the device you generated your keys on is already sending your data to the scammers, you might risk losing your coins in that case.
While it's an individual's choice ofcourse, I would still prefer to keep holding to my coins where it is, if holding for a long term.

[Smartprofit]

I think this might make sense in the following situation: you previously generated a 12-word seed phrase for your wallet, but now want to increase the entropy. By adding your own chaos to the system. 🙋

In this case, you can create a new wallet, generating a new 12-word seed phrase for it, as well as an additional passphrase. This will increase the entropy and, theoretically, improve your security. After all, the Coldcard hardware wallet story scared a lot of people...

Next, you need to transfer the bitcoins from the old wallet to the new one (by sending them to the corresponding new address). Of course, this must be done carefully. And don't forget, don't lose your passphrase. Increasing the complexity of the system can improve security, but it can also decrease it if you aren't careful and attentive enough to move to the next level. 🧑‍💻

[Churchillvv]

If you have been reading about hacks, phishing attacks etc you would know the dangers of changing wallet address frequently and the advantages, the dangers outweighs the advantages which is why most people will always prefer cold wallet on airgapped devices to be safe and private as much as you desire. However over the time of you believe you can handle the right associated with it you can as well continue with the idea however I think you should be more careful and take the most popular opinion here since almost everyone is saying same thing.

[ArabBTC]

The key thing is securing your seed phrase in a safe space, wether one change his storage wallet every time doesn’t guarantee safety, to me it is even risky because you can mistaken transfer your bitcoin to a wrong address while trying to move them, you can also misplace the seed phrase of a particular wallet or interchange them in the process, a scammer too might mistakenly stumble on your seed phrase if you are fond of changing wallet’s repeatedly, the major thing is to find a way of safeguarding your seed phrase not changing wallets.

[BlackBoss_]

If you have been reading about hacks, phishing attacks etc you would know the dangers of changing wallet address frequently and the advantages, the dangers outweighs the advantages which is why most people will always prefer cold wallet on airgapped devices to be safe and private as much as you desire. However over the time of you believe you can handle the right associated with it you can as well continue with the idea however I think you should be more careful and take the most popular opinion here since almost everyone is saying same thing.

If you do things rightly and safely, you will not lose your bitcoins when you move them from one wallet to another wallet. In addition, when you are moving your funds or big funds for this purpose, safety first and that means you will separate your fund movement into different transactions. It will minimize or eliminate risk of losing all your bitcoin if mistake is made in a single transaction.

By doing steps safely and securely, and split the fund movement into several transactions, you are both knowledgeable and careful, together with your experience, you will be able to secure your funds in either current wallets or new ones.

https://bitcoin.org/en/secure-your-wallet

[ImGenius]

The key thing is securing your seed phrase in a safe space, wether one change his storage wallet every time doesn’t guarantee safety, to me it is even risky because you can mistaken transfer your bitcoin to a wrong address while trying to move them, you can also misplace the seed phrase of a particular wallet or interchange them in the process, a scammer too might mistakenly stumble on your seed phrase if you are fond of changing wallet’s repeatedly, the major thing is to find a way of safeguarding your seed phrase not changing wallets.

I think the most important thing is to keep the device safe and store the seed phrase in a secure place. I was thinking about why no one has been able to take the Bitcoin from Satoshi's addresses for almost 17 years. There is only one reason that is no one has access to his private key.
   
So our main target should be keeping the seed phrase and device secure and that will solve the problem. We should only change the address when we feel that the device or address is no longer secure.