<p>The only reason why it is recommended to use a different address for every transaction, is for increased anonymity - it makes it more difficult to trace, and next to impossible to prove, that the recipient of transaction A is the same person as the recipient of transaction B.</p>

<p>If you publish an address to receive payments online, and keep it static, everyone can go to <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/">http://blockexplorer.com/</a> and see all the money you have received, and calculate how much money you got. If you change the address after every transaction, it makes it much more difficult - someone who have to constantly monitor your web page with the published address to know all your addresses you received money on. And if you keep the page with the published address non-public, such as that your customer has to log-in to his account on your system to see the address, that makes it practically impossible for third parties to monitor your income, find out how much money you have and what you spend it on.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-17T08:53:53.307Z
Another reason is extra security. Once you make a transaction you reveal your public key. Yes it's public and should be safe, but if a serious weakness is ever discovered in Secp256k1 then funds where the public key is known are at risk first.
Jannes
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-23T17:17:49.703Z
OK, I get it. What happens if my computer will crash? Do I lose all my bitcoins?
Klajdi
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-23T17:24:18.487Z
That's a different question, which is answered here: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/116/what-happens-to-my-bitcoins-if-lose-my-wallet-file-e-g-i-suffer-data-loss-and-m
D.H.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-23T18:06:24.500Z
Another reason is so that you know who paid you. If you give the same address to everyone, it's harder to know who sent you the Bitcoins.
David Schwartz
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-24T08:06:53.203Z
But as far as I can tell, as soon as you create a transaction bundling the money from several addresses and sending them to one other, everyone can tell that these addresses belong together? Or am I wrong there?
glglgl
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-24T09:19:28.547Z
@glglgl: That's true, but it does make it harder to trace your funds. Also, in the future we'll see increased popularity of all sorts of smart transactions and dedicated mixing transactions, so it's not guaranteed that two inputs in the same transaction belong to the same person.
Meni Rosenfeld
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-25T06:42:34.793Z
@glglgl You might guess so, but there's no easy way to know what the meaning behind a transaction is. Say you see money from accounts A, B, and C move to D. You check back and you see A got money from AA, B from BB, and C from CC. Now, do A, B, and C belong to the same person and the transaction's a ruse? Or are they three people who just all paid the same person? The problem is, you can't tell ruse transactions from real transactions.
David Schwartz
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-11-23T17:06:27.283Z
2011-11-23T17:06:27.283Z
ria
<p>Should I use a different address for every transaction? If yes, why? For safety?
What happens I use the same address to get bitcoins from 2 different people, what happens?</p>

<privacy><address-reuse>
Should I use a different address for every transaction?
Klajdi
# Should I use a different address for every transaction?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2011-11-23)

Should I use a different address for every transaction? If yes, why? For safety?
What happens I use the same address to get bitcoins from 2 different people, what happens?

**Tags:** privacy, address-reuse


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2011-11-23. Score: 7

The only reason why it is recommended to use a different address for every transaction, is for increased anonymity - it makes it more difficult to trace, and next to impossible to prove, that the recipient of transaction A is the same person as the recipient of transaction B.

If you publish an address to receive payments online, and keep it static, everyone can go to <http://blockexplorer.com/> and see all the money you have received, and calculate how much money you got. If you change the address after every transaction, it makes it much more difficult - someone who have to constantly monitor your web page with the published address to know all your addresses you received money on. And if you keep the page with the published address non-public, such as that your customer has to log-in to his account on your system to see the address, that makes it practically impossible for third parties to monitor your income, find out how much money you have and what you spend it on.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: OK, I get it. What happens if my computer will crash? Do I lose all my bitcoins?  
> **username_3**: That's a different question, which is answered here: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/116/what-happens-to-my-bitcoins-if-lose-my-wallet-file-e-g-i-suffer-data-loss-and-m  
> **username_4**: Another reason is so that you know who paid you. If you give the same address to everyone, it's harder to know who sent you the Bitcoins.  
> **username_5**: But as far as I can tell, as soon as you create a transaction bundling the money from several addresses and sending them to one other, everyone can tell that these addresses belong together? Or am I wrong there?  
> **username_6**: @username_5: That's true, but it does make it harder to trace your funds. Also, in the future we'll see increased popularity of all sorts of smart transactions and dedicated mixing transactions, so it's not guaranteed that two inputs in the same transaction belong to the same person.  
> **username_4**: @username_5 You might guess so, but there's no easy way to know what the meaning behind a transaction is. Say you see money from accounts A, B, and C move to D. You check back and you see A got money from AA, B from BB, and C from CC. Now, do A, B, and C belong to the same person and the transaction's a ruse? Or are they three people who just all paid the same person? The problem is, you can't tell ruse transactions from real transactions.  
> **username_2**: Another reason is extra security. Once you make a transaction you reveal your public key. Yes it's public and should be safe, but if a serious weakness is ever discovered in Secp256k1 then funds where the public key is known are at risk first.  

---

