Author

Topic: Vanity Addresses and Private Keys (Read 452 times)

legendary
Activity: 1890
Merit: 1086
Ian Knowles - CIYAM Lead Developer
December 14, 2013, 12:44:01 AM
#6
As a "newbie" on this site, thank you for your help! Smiley

Most welcome - and it shouldn't take too long to get rid of the "newbie" tag. Smiley
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
December 14, 2013, 12:33:40 AM
#5
As a "newbie" on this site, thank you for your help! Smiley
legendary
Activity: 1890
Merit: 1086
Ian Knowles - CIYAM Lead Developer
December 14, 2013, 12:28:07 AM
#4
So you would need both private keys to spend the coins from that address?

Correct - basically some clever math stuff is involved which makes it safe for you to get someone else to generate your vanity address.

There is a service offering to do this (not free except for easy ones) - if you search the forum it should be easy enough to find.
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
December 14, 2013, 12:23:51 AM
#3
one that involves more than 1 private key


So you would need both private keys to spend the coins from that address?
legendary
Activity: 1890
Merit: 1086
Ian Knowles - CIYAM Lead Developer
December 14, 2013, 12:17:13 AM
#2
You should only let another person generate a vanity address for you if it is one that involves more than 1 private key (generally referred to as M of N signature addresses which start with a 3 rather than a 1).

Unless the prefix you are wanting is longer than say 5 characters you would be better to generate such an address yourself.

If you are worried about using "vanitygen" then I would advise generating your vanity address on an "offline" computer (and building the executable yourself from the repo source).

Also note that although I do use a vanity address myself it is never a great idea to re-use Bitcoin addresses.
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
December 14, 2013, 12:09:45 AM
#1
I just had a couple questions regarding vanity address generators and private keys.

Why would person A use a vanity address created by person B if person B knows the private key to that address? Wouldn't this defeat the whole purpose of keeping your keys secret?

Also, how safe are vanity address generators? How can I trust that the developer will not steal my coins?

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