Topic: Financial tracking app asking for BTC address (Read 323 times)

Like I mentioned earlier, it would help a lot if you took some time to learn a thing or two about hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets. The term "hierarchical" refers to the tree-like structure of the keys, where each key is derived from its parent key in a predictable and repeatable manner. Basically, the seed phrase is used to create a master private key, which is then used to derive child keys.


Source: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki

Does a wallet have a 'main address'??

It depends on the specific wallet you are using. The primary purpose of a seed phrase is to act as a backup and recovery mechanism for your digital wallet.

In general, most wallets will prompt you to enter a seed phrase during the initial setup process. In some cases, when you reinstall or switch to a new device, you may need to choose to restore your existing wallet instead of creating a new one. During the restoration process, you will typically be prompted to enter your seed phrase, which will allow you to regain access to your existing wallet and funds.

Thanks for the info and suggestion, I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this.

Is is possible to set the seed-phrase manually? I can't remember being prompted to enter one when setting up the wallet

What worries me is that you don't know the difference between the seed phrase and the password (passphrase). No, they are not the same! The passphrase (AKA password) in Bitcoin core is used to encrypt the private keys in the wallet data file, while the seed phrase is used to generate the private keys themselves. So while both the passphrase and the seed phrase are important for securing your Bitcoin, they serve different purposes.


Yes, it is possible. Although using a new address for each transaction is a good privacy practice, it's still possible for someone to link those transactions together and determine that they all came from the same wallet. There are some block explorers, like for example WalletExplorer.com, that can use advanced algorithms to analyze blockchain transactions and attempt to link them together.


How will you delete an address from your bitcoin core wallet?
It seems like there might be some confusion here. Sharing a single address does not give anyone an insight into your entire wallet balance, but it is still possible for them to track down your other addresses through the use of blockchain analytics. Sharing the master public key of your wallet, on the other hand, is a completely different story.

(By the way, it could be helpful for you to learn the ins and outs of key and address generation in hierarchical deterministic wallets.)

Well, it should not be a problem... if you do not use that address for everything you do. People can only get a full picture of your spending habits and the size of your wealth, if that address are linked to your other coins. I use several different addresses for all the different things I do.. and they are never linked, so nobody can track everything I do and what I own. 

Ps.... You have a spelling mistake in your Subject.... ===> "Finantial tracking app asking for BTC address" - It should be financial. 

we still don’t know which application are you talking about?  You have not mentioned any application name or link here, from where we can verify the authenticity of the application. But before downloading any app make sure that app is official and authentic.

if you just share your public key then it will not any problem. but keep secret your private key or security phrase. Be careful while installing any application that it is official.  Otherwise hackers can hack your device through that application and you can lose important data or your crypto.

That's great for increasing your privacy, but someone can also track it if they know your main address.
If you really care about privacy, then try obfuscating your transactions by using a mixer. I think it's a solution to increase your privacy.

But for your main question in the OP, you can safely share your public address ^{[except you don't want anyone to know how much budget you have in your wallet].} Protect your financial privacy, it is better for your security and convenience.

OP, You can learn how you protect your privacy here with bitcoin: Protect your privacy

Its nothing like that. Once you share your public address to anyone or lets say anyone who has your public address
 will be able to see your balance in the address.
Bitcoin has a public ledger which means all the transactions made on bitcoin blockchain are publicly known for everyone to verify.
You can read more about it in the book called mastering bitcoin.

No there is no problem at all. You can easily use your Bitcoin address to track your portfolio through financial tracking app. But always keep remember to make secure you private keys.

I don't think we should realistically consider this a security risk. We're long before elliptic curve cryptography becomes weak. Revealing your public key should be no concern for 2023. If it ever becomes even slightly practically possible, we'll have known about it before.

Okay, but I don't see how this is relevant with the discussion, because we were talking about privacy concerns.

I just mean the difference between public key and public address. Public address is the hashed public key ya know. Public keys were given in the original bitcoin transaction type but all newer transaction types have only used public addresses for the receiving address rather than public keys. From what I've read about quantum computing, eventually when quantum computing is mature it would be able to crack a private key from a pubic key, but not from a bitcoin address (the hash of the public key). So public key just exposes more information that will in the future become a threat. You only expose your public key to the blockchain when you send a transaction, which as I understand it is why bitcoin addresses are supposed to be one-time-use only, because once you've sent a transaction your public key is on the blockchain so you ideally for privacy you don't want to use it again, though I don't think it matters for security until quantum computing becomes a thing. I guess the idea is just that you never want to expose more information than is necessary, and a public key is closer to a private key so it is exposing more information than a public address.

Which address are you talking about like public one, if yes than i think there is no big deal in sharing your address to third party app. because anyone can see you public address along with the transactions that you will perform using that same address. So i think these are most basic ingredients that your selected financial tracking app needed to make a quick report of your transactional data. Well, if you are like signing your wallet (btc wallet) with that app that i do not recommend it if you just have to give your public address than i say there is no bad in this.

If you provide more details like the name of your financial tracking app so maybe i can look into it and could suggest you with facts and figures. That would be of great use for you to make decisions.
 Well how this thing work. Like if you have wallet "X"  having some btc and you want to track them and you create Wallet "Y" having no btc so what good in there, tracking new wallet "Y". i did not catch your logic here. will you send your some btc from X to Y or what. Well, from all of your queries i can say. if you are worried about getting hacked through that app then you should check the age first and level of trust community have on it. secondly, your anonymity could be exposes if you attach your wallet with it. well if you do not care about security and anoynmity than i must say well give it a try and share your experience with us. (it's joke do not take it seriously)

If you're bored to update the numbers, then you can do it in your way. Just acknowledge that you're likely sacrificing most of your privacy for this little convenience.

What difference would it make if you gave them your public key? Did you perhaps mean master public key?

You only compromise your privacy because you are giving your Bitcoin address to a company and who knows they may sell their data or share it with the government or hackers may hack them to see everyone's address. It doesn't pose a risk to your Bitcoin because you're just giving them the public address, not the public key or the private key, but it is a privacy issue so just depends on whether you care about others knowing your address and your bitcoin holdings.

I would ask does your Bitcoin in the address(es) change often? Are you DCAing and the amount of Bitcoin is changing regularly? If it is then I guess I could see you using this app if you want to regularly check your money in Bitcoin. But if your amount of Bitcoin is not changing often, or if you just occasionally want to check how much money you have, you can just go to a block explorer and type in your address. This would just take a few seconds and barely longer than opening up an app that shows your net worth. Only reason to use the app you are talking about would be if you just really really want to track your net worth over time and watch it go up and down all together with Bitcoin included in whatever other finances you have.

Good point. Do you know what spreadsheets are known for being private and secure?

Where is my public key located? Is this a file? (this app only asks for the address)


This worries me. Is the seed phrase the same thing as the password used to encrypt my wallet in btc core?


My initial thought was purely for convenience - to have the sum total of all my assets automatically updated, and in one place. However, I like this philosophy better.


If I make a new address per transaction, is it possible for someone to see that all these transactions came from the same wallet?


If I delete an address from bitcoin core that I've previously shared with someone, does this mean that this person can no longer see my wallet balance?

There's no risk of sharing publick address to anyone. It is meant to be shared.
But you must know that everyone who knows your public address will be able to see how much BTC you hold.
So when you share your public address to this app, you are basically giving it the right to see how much balance you hold.
Also, this app will be able to track you using this address and identify you as the owner of this address.
This decreases your anonymity. You can go ahead if you don't really care about privacy that much.

Actually it's not even the public key that they get since addresses are one-way hashes of them - there's no way to get back even the public key.

It should be straightforward to use the blockchain.com API or some other API to periodically update your address balance for you, without having to register. In fact, there's nothing to register for in the first place.

I see similar tracking bitcoin apps, it's either you

1. just type your bitcoin address and it will fetch how much bitcoin it had
2. create a account on that app, and save your bitcoin address

So there is more danger on option 2 specially privacy as others pointed out. I mean I have no idea why someone will put their addresses on that app in the first place You can just used the old and reliable,

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/[insert your bitcoin address here].

I am on the very edge.  No idea if I think it is safe or not.  If you are using a Financial Tracking app, I assume you already do not care about your Privacy in which case it probably does not matter if you share this information with them.  Want my opinion?  I would never do this because I value my Privacy.

After all, it is about you and what you want.  Do you trust this Financial Tracking app?  Do you trust the developers?  The owners?  If you hand them this information, chances are they will sell it away to some body else.  Do you mind that, or do you just not care.  If you care, do not hand them this information.

You likely already gave a lot of people the information that you own this amount of Bitcoin.  By using a Bitcoin Explorer to check your Address balance, you are doing just this.  You are giving them the information that the balance of that Address is in your interest.  If you search it once, they may not link it to you.  But if you specifically search your own TXIDs, Addresses et cetera multiple times, they will link it to you with great accuracy.

The whole thing you are asking is surrounded by a question.  Do you care about your Privacy?

-
Regards,
PrivacyG