<p>Privacy.</p>
<p>Reusing one of the addresses an input is consuming from as change would would make it trivial for third party observers to infer which output is change and which is the actual payment.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there is no cost or size benefit to reusing. Bitcoin is UTXO-based, not account based, and there is no fee or complexity difference between using a fresh address vs. reusing an older one.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-12-10T20:44:21.950Z
2021-12-10T20:44:21.950Z
Pieter Wuille
<p>Why every wallet generates a new change address instead of sending back to itself?</p>

<transactions><wallet>
Why bitcoin change addresses are not just the own address?
Guerlando OCs
# Why bitcoin change addresses are not just the own address?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-12-10)

Why every wallet generates a new change address instead of sending back to itself?

**Tags:** transactions, wallet


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-12-10. Score: 4

Privacy.

Reusing one of the addresses an input is consuming from as change would would make it trivial for third party observers to infer which output is change and which is the actual payment.

Furthermore, there is no cost or size benefit to reusing. Bitcoin is UTXO-based, not account based, and there is no fee or complexity difference between using a fresh address vs. reusing an older one.


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