How long have you had your Bitcoin Address?

[medUSA]

I have used my current one for about 4 months. It is only for sig campaigns. I have another one for mining revenue which is over 1 year old. I use a different address for different purposes and seldom change it. I will use a new one when an address takes too long to load all transactions in my blockchain wallet.

[BurtW]

You may not realize it but you have just opened a huge can of worms.

Address reuse is one of the most important issues in the entire Bitcoin ecosystem.

Address reuse is at the heart of the financial privacy, taint analysis, fungibility and coin black/gray/red/white listing issues.

This is one of my pet concerns as you can tell by my signature below this post.

Ideally address reuse should be forbidden.  It is forbidden in some alt coins and they are better off because of that.  But address reuse has become entrenched in Bitcoin.

For a lively debate of the issues at hand see how people responded when Luke-Jr (the Eligius mining pool) suggested we just gently economically try to persuade people to stop doing it (for the good of the entire Bitcoin ecosystem) read this entire thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334316.0

If you follow my personal responses in the thread you will find me very hostile to the idea until I realized the importance of this issue.  Now I am 100% against address reuse, vanity addresses and other things that undermine the long term survival of Bitcoin.

If you are interested in these very important issues please read the entire thread.  However the most important post in the thread is this one post by Greg Maxwell:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334316.msg3588908#msg3588908

That one post took me from this:

[I believe Luke-Jr's proposal is a] Knee Jerk Reaction.

to this:

For what it is worth, I was totally against this proposal as well.  This is one of the posts that convinced me this (fungibility) is  a critical issue:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334316.msg3588908#msg3588908

Now I consider the proposal just a "baby step" in the right direction.  We actually need to implement BIP32 system wide and come up with even more ideas to make it as hard as possible to implement those ideas that are floating around that will destroy the fungible property of Bitcoin.

The battle over the fungibility of Bitcoin is the battle for Bitcoin itself.  If fungibility is destroyed then Bitcoin will eventually become just a footnote in history.

As I have said, if you remove the fungible nature of Bitcoin - as is being proposed - then Bitcoin becomes a collectible and is no longer money.

If you have any other/better ideas to help preserve fungibility then we need to hear them now! Please!

[RiverBoatBTC]

So Burt would you be opposed to keeping 1 wallet so the community could be able to identify you? for reference? It would act kinda like a PGP

[oureptsC]

I have my wallet somewhere from 5 to 10 months and I didn't change It , what is the point of changing the wallets address each time? I guess for security but That Is only If you have a huge pile of bitcoins , I mean like 500-1000+. But If you have a lot of bitcoins you just keep them in separate wallets and no need to change them still? Can't tell much bout It because I just use one or two wallets.

[BurtW]

So Burt would you be opposed to keeping 1 wallet so the community could be able to identify you? for reference? It would act kinda like a PGP

Do you mean wallet (collection of Bitcoin addresses) or one Bitcoin address?

Would this wallet/address be used for actual transactions?

[Justin00]

I have had my original wallet, well since the begining. it is what i use for Wot. I don't use it anymore (except for WoT) but i have gone thourh heaaaps now.

backing up heaps

[BurtW]

Before someone asks "How does my address reuse, because I really don't care about my financial privacy, affect those that do care about it?"

No one asks you to make your btc addresses public. You can keep it as secret as you will. You can always choose to generate one-time receiving address if you want. But is there any reason to stop others to use one address as their public address if they think they don't mind?

Because reusing addresses makes it open to everyone, not just the relevant parties you'd like (or have been ordered to) disclose them to. Worse, your lack of privacy make everyone you transact with and everyone they transact with less private.  Your comments about "always choose" are empty promises in the face of proposals to have black and white lists which will limit your ability to transact, and empty in the face of privacy losses created by people who you've transacted with.

I can turn everything you've said right around— there is nothing preventing you from privately identifying yourself and registering your addresses. You can always do this and the parties you transact with can to. Nothing about requiring privacy preserving behavior in the public network prevents you from separately having information disclosed about you, nothing can prevent investigations from happening. But the converse is not true, the lack of privacy in the public network very easily prevents people from choosing to be private at all, and it very easily can make Bitcoin worthless as a money like good.

[RiverBoatBTC]

Just one wallet for the sole purpose of identity verification. I hate to say this.. but kinda like a social security number.  
Like lets say

Bobblank would like to take out a loan with lendy mclenderson.

Lendy can go check out bobs address to verify he is who he says he is,

this is mainly aimed at lending, and securities verification and to stop this horrible amount of scamming. I am gathering data to kinda build a credit agency type deal.

This is part of my research, if lenders and investors required people to have some sort of verification we could cut this scam crap down by more then half I feel and reshape the image of bitcoin "being full of scams".

Pretty much it would work like other credit agency's but your address would be your identifying number.
Lenders and investors require a client to be registered with us. We contact the client as for a address they would like to be identified.
We then as them, First and last name and state they are from. Pull a background check ask some verification question only they would know. WE WOULD NOT hold any information besides the persons name, btc forum name and BTCaddy.
When a lender/investor logs into our system they could either type in a BTCaddy or persons name.
It would return a database read out something like this

Client log in "they See"
Bitcoin address verfied?
User Name
Risk level?
Phone Number verified? Yes or no?
Residence Verfied? Yes or No?
Cross checked? Yes or No?
Loans, Dates, Amounts. Accounts closed or open.
Credit Score?  1-1000
Late Payments? The amount of late pays
Collections? Amount and Person owed
Loan Modifications? Modifications to Loans and Terms.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Risk Level  ********* need to figure out **********
Credit Score **********need to figure out *********

[BurtW]

OK, lets say I have a wallet with let's say 100 Bitcoin address (100 private keys).  What next?  Do I register these 100 public keys or 100 Bitcoin addresses with you (some authority)?

Is that the basic idea?

[RiverBoatBTC]

No just one address you would be willing to use to identify with.

[BurtW]

No just one address you would be willing to use to identify with.

OK.  To avoid confusion in the future please use the term "wallet" as a collection of "(Bitcoin) addresses".

So this address is used just to identify a person.  There are no transactions using this address.  Totally fine.

They can use the address as their ID number, sign messages with the private key to prove their ID and they do NOT send or receive BTC using this address.  Totally fine.

[RiverBoatBTC]

No just one address you would be willing to use to identify with.

OK.  To avoid confusion in the future please use the term "wallet" as a collection of "(Bitcoin) addresses".

So this address is used just to identify a person.  There are no transactions using this address.  Totally fine.

They can use the address as their ID number, sign messages with the private key to prove their ID and they do NOT send or receive BTC using this address.  Totally fine.

Yup thats exactly how it would work, only verification and loans.  Be like a bitcurity number or something like that lol

[BurtW]

Technically totally possible.

On the business side you have (at least) two issues:  fake IDs and your liability exposure.

Let me know if I can help you out with any technical matters.

[lynn_402]

I am interested to know if people keep addresses or use new ones all the time.

If you use new ones all the time, if you could explain why that would be great.
and do you identify yourself with your bitcoin address?

I've had my static Bitcoin address for about four months, before that I kept my coins on Coinbase because that seemed like the safest place to leave them while I learnt about how to properly secure them on my own. In retrospective, blockchain.info would have been better, since it does not keep the user's private keys.

[RiverBoatBTC]

Technically totally possible.

On the business side you have (at least) two issues:  fake IDs and your liability exposure.

Let me know if I can help you out with any technical matters.

Fake I.D. will not pass my background check, I will not even require a physical copy of a I.D. in most cases.
I ask them First last and middle state of residence or previous state if it has been less then 2 years.

I pull a background check and ask them question only they would know ex. have you ever been convicted of a crime if so what?
Do you have any previous addresses?
Do you still have this email? then I will send them a email with a random code then ask for them to repeat it back.
I have many more ways of checking but I do not want to give them all away.
Call them on the background check numbers listed.

[BurtW]

Seems like a reasonable start.  Good luck!

[m2asia]

I still new on bitcoin, not longer than 2 month ago...

Hope I can get some fortune here. For now, I only depend on cloud mining service.

I did collecting from faucets,, but it took too long for me, so I stop it.