Topic: why so many addresses and private keys (Read 708 times)

Good stuff.

Also to the OP. If privacy concerns you, you may want to read up on coin control.
(https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/tutorial-how-to-use-electrum-for-advanced-users-3774520)

It allows you to enhance your privacy by spending from specific addresses. To understand how it helps you enhance your privacy, copied this from the Bitcoin Wiki.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Privacy#Coin_control

Coin control

Coin control is a feature of some bitcoin wallets that allow the user to choose which coins are to be spent as inputs in an outgoing transaction. Coin control is aimed to avoid as much as possible transactions where privacy leaks are caused by amounts, change addresses, the transaction graph and the common-input-ownership heuristic.

An example for avoiding a transaction graph privacy leak with coin control: A user is paid bitcoin for their employment, but also sometimes buys bitcoin with cash. The user wants to donate some money to a charitable cause they feel passionately about, but doesn't want their employer to know. The charity also has a publicly-visible donation address which can been found by web search engines. If the user paid to the charity without coin control, his wallet may use coins that came from the employer, which would allow the employer to figure out which charity the user donated to. By using coin control, the user can make sure that only coins that were obtained anonymously with cash were sent to the charity. This avoids the employer ever knowing that the user financially supports this charity.

See here for why you have many addresses

Most of the time it's about the privacy issue. Good or not depends on what you really need. If you're a charity foundation then maybe using the same address to receive a donation is better. But if you're an average user then using the same address is not really a problem, unless quantum computer becomes so cheap that people can find your private key from your xpub, cmiiw.


If all of them are part of the same wallet, afaik you can do it. If not, you can't.

Sorry for bumping an old topic,

What's the point in generating more than 1 address? Is it a good thing to use every time different receive address? And if my funds are split among those address, can I send a certain amount (higher than the single address balance) with only a transaction?

this member give all information with simple words +1

It will generate new addresses which is why a private key backup is a very dangerous thing to rely on. Your coins will eventually be moved to the new addresses by Electrum and you will be SOL. You should backup only the 12 word seed mnemonic.

Thank you all

Close, but not quite... The default gap limit in Electrum is 20 for receive addresses... and 5 for change addresses.

On initial wallet creation, Electrum generates your 1st receive address, and then searches for the next 20 consecutive unused receive addresses looking for coins/transactions before stopping. It then looks for the first 5 consecutive unused "change" addresses for coins/transactions before stopping.

So you have 1 + 20 + 5 = 26 addresses... with 26 private keys

As others stated above it would be wise to  stick with SEED only unless you have a specific reason to need those private keys.  Is there a reason that you decided to export all those private keys?  Its OK if you just did a newbie thing, we were all there once.  I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure that those private keys and SEED never get in someone else's hands.  It would be a disaster for your coins staying in your wallet.

Thank you so much

You can use those addresses actually forever,as long as you are in possession of your seed and private keys.You do not have to worry about Electrum generate new addresses and you not need to export private keys for for each new address,all you need is your seed(secret words) and if you get in some problem with your wallet you can just download Electrum again and with your original seed restore completely your wallet with all addresses/balance/transactions.

There is also possibility that only with one public exposed private key from Elecrum HD you can jeopardize your wallet.If I remember well, there is a possibility to create seed using private key.

I don't completely understand    but thanks anyway.     
One more question,  I exported those addresses,  will it use these addresses only or it can generate new ones again and again, I want the same address.

Electrum uses hiearchial determistic(HD) seeds to generate addresses. Using the seed, the client can generate a master private key which can generate a practically unlimited number of addresses. The default behavior of Electrum is to generate addresses till they find an àddress with Bitcoins and generate an additional 10 addresses after that point. Judging by that, you likely had 16 transactions using your wallet.

I'm newbie and sorry for stupid question, I exported private keys from electrum, I was wondering why there is 26 of addresses and private keys, I thought it would be one.