Why use segwit addresses? Lower fees, basically.
Which is better? Native segwit (bc1q...) addresses have the lowest fees but are not supported everywhere, and cannot contain certain characters. All letters are also lowercase in native segwit addresses. Segwit-P2SH (3...) addresses have slightly higher fees than native segwit (still much lower than vanilla 1... addresses), but are supported in more places and don't have the same character restrictions, although your address has to be within a certain range.
Is it safe? You will need to download VanitySearch to your own machine and generate a split-key pair. You'll give me your public key, saving your part private key to a safe area and revealing it to no-one. I will then use the public key to find the second part private key which will yield your desired address, and you will combine them to get the private key to your desired address. Tutorials for this are lower down in the post, it is relatively simple.
All part private key generation is done on a machine that blocks all outbound traffic. Even if it was 'compromised', you should be safe as long as you do not reveal your part private key to anyone.
If I'm downloading VanitySearch, why don't I just find the address myself? Because it would take a long time, and for the less technically-inclined, generating a split-key pair is much easier than generating a whole vanity address yourself, waiting many hours, using up valuable CPU/GPU time on your machine, etc. Generation is done on one of my disposable machines, with 12 available cores.
Limitations on Segwit-P2SH addresses
- Will always start with a 3
- Cannot contain O, I, 0 or l (lowercase L)
- Can only generate addresses in the range 31h1 to 3R2c.
- Look at this line to see how characters are organised for the range: 123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz.
- If you have questions about whether your address can be generated feel free to ask myself or another person on the thread
Limitations on native segwit addresses
- Will always start with 1bcq
- Only 023456789acdefghjklmnpqrstuvwxyz allowed
- Lowercase only
Overall Limitations
- Anything under 500,000,000,000 (500 billion) difficulty is free, tips appreciated, or any other way of showing your appreciation. Even a thanks is nice
- Generally every prefix 7 characters or less will be under 500 billion difficulty and therefore free, and 8 characters will incur a cost. Keep in mind 500 billion difficulty still requires a decent chunk of time to work through so don't request a 7-character for the sake of it!
- Addresses with greater difficulty than 500b require a minimum 0.00005 BTC payment per 100 billion difficulty
- Example:
Search: bc1qdmdcardz (8 character prefix)
Difficulty: 1099511627776
Charge: 1,099,511,627,776 / 100,000,000,000 = 10.9951 * 0.00005 BTC = 0.000549755 BTC
Generating a split-key pair
1. Download VanitySearch.exe
2. Either: Go to the folder where you have stored this executable, Shift+CTRL+RightClick and open a command prompt there, or open 'cmd' manually and navigate using cd to the directory where you have stored this executable.
3. Come up with a seed, minimum 10 random characters, preferably more
4. In the command prompt, type
Code:
vanitysearch.exe -s "seed" -kp
5. Save the generated Priv+Pub key pair into a text file called "keypair.txt" in the same directory as your VanitySearch.exe6. Post on this thread, using the following format:
Code:
Desired address prefix (3.. or bc1q..):
Public key:
Public key:
Constructing your new address private key
1. Copy the part private key I give you after generation is finished
2. Go to the same directory as before in command prompt
3. Type the following in CMD, replacing partprivkey with the part private key I gave you:
Code:
VanitySearch.exe -rp partprivkey keypair.txt
4. Save the private key that is outputted. For instance, for importing into a Bitcoin wallet, you'll normally want the WIF format.Donation/payment address: bc1qd0nateyalxs6ugd9f3uutsh4lfwvza0ns0tsm4