Quote from: PrivacyG on February 17, 2022, 09:29:16 PM

Quote from: Psycopyro on February 17, 2022, 08:40:54 PM

I didn't even check DIY solutions before buying one, I should... I don't like the changing address of Ledger, don't know if it's a rule for all hardware wallets but I don't really understand the goal.

If by changing address you mean you get a new receiving address every time you want to receive coins, this is called Change Address and it exists for privacy reasons. If I had your address and you never generate new addresses, I would know that all your incoming and outgoing transactions are received and broadcasted by you. If you have Change addresses, tracing coins to your identity is getting harder. Add Coin Control to all of this and you will have significantly increased the privacy of your Bitcoins.

Also, Change Addresses exist on all wallets. Even on Do It Yourself solutions you still have them. This does not stop you from using a single address all the time though, but it is at the expense of your privacy.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

That

That sounds a bit confusing. The receive address is the address you generate every time you want to receive a payment. Once payment is received, a wallet usually hides that address to protect your privacy and discourage you from reusing it. However, you can reuse it if you want: it is just not advisable but well doable. There is another type of address - change addresses - which more often than not are not visible to the user. These addresses are used to receive a so-called "change." A change is created in case the value of UTXOs you're sending is higher than the payment. The main peculiarity of an UTXO (unspent transaction output) is that it can only be sent in its entirety, that is, it is like a dollar bill that cannot be divided. For example, if your wallet has only one output of 5 btc and you send a payment of 1 btc, you will receive a change of 4 btc (minus transaction fees). A wallet usually generates change addresses automatically, but if you want, you can send a change back to the address you made a payment from. However, it is a bad practice since sending back to the same address exposes which output was a payment and which was a change.