Topic: Why publicise your wallet address (Read 424 times)
I had previously rarely change addresses because each address I have replenished the same sources. Now every time I change my address, or rather its change purse itself.
Although I do have an address in my profile, if/when I receive money in that address I change the address. And I advise everybody do the same.
Your advice is good advice if not a little bit extreme. The majority of people would probably just benefit from putting an address in their profile specifically for this forum, rather than changing it every time they receive Bitcoin. Maybe, if the amount begins to stack up, and its more money than your comfortable showing to the world, then you could change it. You do have a point, but in my 7 years on Bitcointalk I've received money into the profile Bitcoin address maximum 3 times. I tend to believe it was only once, so the 3 is "to be sure".
So unless somebody is involved in businesses on the forum, I find my rule is as good as yours.
People have a different reason for publicizing their wallet address through their profile, I think the number reason is for payment receiving on the forum cause most of the wallet is already staked on the forum and I don't think there will be any danger though cause most of the wallet owner move their coin asap but there's still a chance for vulnerability cause using a single wallet than 3 times is not advisable.
@Mr.right85
I don't know if that Coinremitter signature you are wearing is because of an advertising campaign or not. But if it was, I could easily track your addresses and see what you are paid, and where and how you send those funds. You can do the same with me or any other member of the forum. Considering, of course, that both our campaigns have public spreadsheets, and in 99% of cases, they do.
From a privacy standpoint it's not the best approach, but if the forum and the campaigns advertised on it are to remain completely transparent, it's needed. Thankfully, we have services like ChipMixer, CoinJoin, or privacy coins like Monero which can all be used to cover your traces.
I don't know if that Coinremitter signature you are wearing is because of an advertising campaign or not. But if it was, I could easily track your addresses and see what you are paid, and where and how you send those funds. You can do the same with me or any other member of the forum. Considering, of course, that both our campaigns have public spreadsheets, and in 99% of cases, they do.
From a privacy standpoint it's not the best approach, but if the forum and the campaigns advertised on it are to remain completely transparent, it's needed. Thankfully, we have services like ChipMixer, CoinJoin, or privacy coins like Monero which can all be used to cover your traces.
for other people to transfer money you mean wallet address yes
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Addressing specifically the payments made by campaigns, there is indeed that double side to the sword (the more public the more transparent and ready for lateral actions such as catching cheaters, but the less private in relation to the account’s crypto tenancy). I’ve come to conceptually favour privacy there though, and just as there are campaigns that display a wild array of personal contact information (emails, social contact channels) that could compromise the account’s anonymity at some point or else, so can published public addresses tied to campaign payments lead to some unwanted ties at some point. I’d favour privacy over catching cheaters really, and assume that payment disputes do not require making available everyone’s tenancy from the campaign.
Note: mind is going Big Data here.
I actually see it the other way around: logically, public addresses are required by campaigns to fulfil the payments, but they also contribute to being less pseudo-anonymous globally. The more visible these public addresses are, the more transparent with the payments and such, but also the more information that builds around your account and that becomes of public knowledge through tracking Google Sheets, postulating post to join the campaign and so forth.
Ideally, all this should be carried out in a much more private manner which I’m sure can be thought of.
When concerning transparency you can't really have it without compromising privacy in some sort of way. However, I'm not sure how much transparency is needed when concerning the payments of the campaign. Generally, people only care about if an individual has been paid, and not how much the campaign is sending in total. So, you could potentially get users to sign up without an address, but by doing so you make it harder to prove that the campaign has sent you money, especially if you want to keep your addresses private. Ideally, all this should be carried out in a much more private manner which I’m sure can be thought of.
I'd probably be in favour of changing the way sign ups for campaigns work, and not broadcasting your address to the world upon sign up. However, having that transparent system has worked in the past for finding cheaters of the system. So, there's definitely pros, and cons to the system. Really, the people behind the campaign should probably be on the look out for people cheating the system, and would have all the addresses. However, as the saying goes two heads is better than one, and by having the addresses public you introduce a lot more that can do the vetting for them, without needing to pay someone to do it.
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I actually see it the other way around: logically, public addresses are required by campaigns to fulfil the payments, but they also contribute to being less pseudo-anonymous globally. The more visible these public addresses are, the more transparent with the payments and such, but also the more information that builds around your account and that becomes of public knowledge through tracking Google Sheets, postulating post to join the campaign and so forth. Ideally, all this should be carried out in a much more private manner which I’m sure can be thought of.
What necessitates wallet address publicity?
Is it really necessary to put it up in your profile?
Is it really necessary to put it up in your profile?
No its not necessary but there are advantages as posted by the others above.
Its also useful if you are doing business on the BCT forum like working in signature
campaigns. When applying to a campaign and looking to list your address for payment,
instead of having to login to your wallet your address in your profile is ready for that task.
Its a small thing but it can be convenient.
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So, what really is the reason behind wallet address publicity, is there a transparency to be proved or something else?
So, what really is the reason behind wallet address publicity, is there a transparency to be proved or something else?
You may choose to hide your address to help prevent others from tricking you, and for your privacy.
However, there are a few reasons to provide a wallet address in your Bitcointalk profile:
- You may need an address if you want to receive tips or anything else in bitcoins or some other currency.
- You may want to prove your liquidity if you are engaged in some business on the forum, for example, lending, currency exchange or escrow services
- You may want to protect your bitcointalk account from theft or hacking, so you can sign a message from that address
There are two sides to the codes generated by a wallet. One is for general publicity and thats the public address while the other is for private purposes and that's the private key or seed phrase. The choice as to how one chooses to deal with the publicity of there address is very much up to that user and it isn't in itself harmful otherwise, it won't have been referred to as a public address. Besides, a new address could be generated at every point so, if your to be cautious, using an empty wallet address could provide some sense of comfort.
Your Bitcoin address is not like your bank account, you can create as many addresses as you want. Publicly showing your not yet used address is not a big risk, you just have to remember that you did this and be careful not to link it with your other addresses, by using them in a single transaction or sending coins from them to the same address. Most wallets allow adding notes to your addresses, and you can also "freeze" certain address to not use it in transactions - this is known as coin control, and it's an important skill to learn, if you're concerned about privacy.
So, what really is the reason behind wallet address publicity, is there a transparency to be proved or something else?
To easily copy and paste my address every time I apply for a campaign or if someone asked me about my address. Maybe we can consider to update the system just like the option on email where we can hide it to the public.
I don't know if this is possible, but it can be consider for sure.
Besides limitations of SMF forum and resources, security is another problem. Your account can be hacked and it is not smart to save your bitcoin address in your profile page. Even you decide to hide it from public vision.
You can save your bitcoin address on your computer, encrypt the file. The idea to store it in profile page, in email, in browser or unencrypted file is bad.
On the bases of account recovery, it might seem right but then, it doesn't really feel safe to me to have the wrong people know of what comes in and out of a wallet. Worst still, having a compromised identity.
There once existed a thread on this this board, I think it was created by Charle-Tim if I recall correctly and it was about thefts of this nature. Where a Chinese citizen was harassed and have her wallet emptied by previous peer 2 peer business associates. This is possible because of compromised identity and it could as well happen t anyone in the forum on maybe a different ground.
Compromised identity could result in a lot of things, breaking and entry, death threat and others. So, I still don't feel safe. That the wallet can't be brute forced isn't all the safety that is to warrant such publicity.
There once existed a thread on this this board, I think it was created by Charle-Tim if I recall correctly and it was about thefts of this nature. Where a Chinese citizen was harassed and have her wallet emptied by previous peer 2 peer business associates. This is possible because of compromised identity and it could as well happen t anyone in the forum on maybe a different ground.
Compromised identity could result in a lot of things, breaking and entry, death threat and others. So, I still don't feel safe. That the wallet can't be brute forced isn't all the safety that is to warrant such publicity.
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Isn't the address also revealed whenever one receives into it?Address reuse prevents people looking in from outside to be able to link multiple addresses to a single identity, but I do not think it could practically help in a scenario where quantum computing becomes a reality. All transactions are publicly available on the blockchain and even if one used an new address each time, they would need to have received bitcoins into the public key already, which would have already exposed it.
Nope, simply receiving doesn't expose it:
Only unused addresses are quantum secure, but in reality, there are a lot of people, who reuse addresses. (To clarify: with unused I mean an address that has only been used to deposit funds on, and not used to make transactions from. Because if you make a deposit, or if others transfer funds to your address as payments, your public key stays hidden, but if you make a transaction from that address to another address, your public key will be revealed. See for a detailed explanation, part 2.)
Using a new address each time you spend does help in this case.
A quantum computer theoretically could brute force the private key with the public key (revealed whenever you spend with that address) though, which is one of the reasons why address reuse is frowned upon.
Isn't the address also revealed whenever one receives into it?Address reuse prevents people looking in from outside to be able to link multiple addresses to a single identity, but I do not think it could practically help in a scenario where quantum computing becomes a reality. All transactions are publicly available on the blockchain and even if one used an new address each time, they would need to have received bitcoins into the public key already, which would have already exposed it.
I've seen a couple of posts talking about brute forcing a wallet by hackers and scammers in a bid to open it up. I'm yet to hear a success testimonial in the complaints of an affected user though i wish not for such thing but,
You can't brute force a private key from just a Bitcoin address, so publicizing it doesn't come with any significant risks apart from associating it with your identity.
A quantum computer theoretically could brute force the private key with the public key (revealed whenever you spend with that address) though, which is one of the reasons why address reuse is frowned upon.
If you want to be completely safe from brute forcing and at the same time use a public address, you can simply get a new address every time you spend from it -- you can safely use the same address for receiving for years as long as you don't touch the coins in it.
Just putting the address on the profile doesn't increase the chance of brute force by any mean. Blockchain on whole is publicly available. Hacker would be better off searching the addresses loaded with bitcoins on Block Explorer rather than lurking the profile pages to target one.
About compromising identity, yeah, I agree to some extent but again how is this different from posting your address on facebook or twitter profile? It's a public forum and others will only know what you wanna share with them. Adding an address to the profile can be a good practice if you only want to use it for your forum identity and stuffs but can be a very bad practice if you use the same address to hold your all bitcoins or withdraw directly from it to the KYCed-Exchange.
I am not inclined to wait for any donations and therefore support the OP that there is no need to publish wallet addresses. However, any member who participates in the subscription campaign shows their wallet addresses when registering.
Thus, if someone is interested in the quality of this wallet, he can easily check it in the spreadsheets of managers. Probably, most often scammers are interested in the wallets of the participants in the Chipmixer subscription.
Also, I know of many cases of recovering hacked accounts, when information about the existence of a wallet was taken not from a personal page, but from a profile history.
Thus, if someone is interested in the quality of this wallet, he can easily check it in the spreadsheets of managers. Probably, most often scammers are interested in the wallets of the participants in the Chipmixer subscription.
Also, I know of many cases of recovering hacked accounts, when information about the existence of a wallet was taken not from a personal page, but from a profile history.
So, what really is the reason behind wallet address publicity, is there a transparency to be proved or something else?
To easily copy and paste my address every time I apply for a campaign or if someone asked me about my address. Maybe we can consider to update the system just like the option on email where we can hide it to the public.
I don't know if this is possible, but it can be consider for sure.
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