Risks of publicly sharing your wallet address

[williamshennie9]

This is more related to security risks etc. which I am not 100% certain about. So my question is, what the the worst thing that can happen if someone knows your wallet address? Surely they can't hack it or anything, because otherwise, people would be hacking wallets all over the place. 

So for those of you who are familiar with bitcoin and the whole blockchain system, what are the risks, if any, of sharing your wallet address with anyone?

P.S. I haven't shared my wallet with anyone, so I am not stressed or anything, it is more a matter of curiosity that anything else

[allisonn]

Would you like to clarify what you mean by wallet address? The watch-only public key which lets people see your entire wallet? Or just one of the many input addresses used to deposit money in your wallet?

[barbaris]

I do not think that the distribution of your wallet address will bring you the risk of being hacked. This is just an address. It's like your credit card number, which you leave when you either pay or wait for a transaction.

[CntryBoy]

If you're referring to your public wallet address, whether it is BTC, LTC, ETH, etc, there should be no security risk in sharing it with someone.  As long as your private keys are safe, and not shared with ANYONE, there should be no risk...

[nattekut]

sharing your wallet address isn't such a big deal and there is no risk attached. Its like sharing your bank account with someone that needs to make a money transfer to you. They only thing they would be able to do is to check the balance of that wallet address. But if you rather want to keep that information private than this can be simply done.

I never share the BTC address of my hardware wallets cause there are my holdings stored and no one that wants to send me BTC needs to know how much BTC my wallet contains. For receiving BTC I mostly use wallets that have a new BTC address with every transaction or I use an online wallet where I automatically send the balance automatically to my other wallet address.

As long as you do not ever share your private keys with someone then there will be no risk  

[bmg]

That is a question that has always been on my mind as well so I looked it up.

Basically what I read was that since your wallet is for receiving only so there's no real security issues. 

From my understanding the worst that can happen is someone miss send btc and it wind up in your wallet lol.

[williamshennie9]

On 6/11/2019 at 8:08 PM, allisonn said:

Would you like to clarify what you mean by wallet address? The watch-only public key which lets people see your entire wallet? Or just one of the many input addresses used to deposit money in your wallet?

 

On 6/11/2019 at 8:13 PM, CntryBoy said:

If you're referring to your public wallet address, whether it is BTC, LTC, ETH, etc, there should be no security risk in sharing it with someone.  As long as your private keys are safe, and not shared with ANYONE, there should be no risk...

Yes, to clarify, I am talking about the public address to send and receive bitcoins. Obviously sending or sharing your private key of your wallet is just stupid. So I mean the address I use with I withdraw from Stake (my public wallet address).

[Lillyflow]

William you inspired me to share an article I wrote exploring this very topic.  I hope you find it enjoyable.  

 

I love thought provoking questions. Cheers. 

 

[DreamStage]

Only by sharing your public keys are the main issue / risks for all your wallets attached to it.

Basically you already share your wallet addresses to get your balances / profits transfered to you.

If you wouldnt provide wallet addresses how would you even get your funds?

[Shaniqua]

i think its more related to privacy risks rather than security risks. as a stocker coould use it see when yuo depo and how much and then be all like, u rish bish halp me too i c u depositing ugh

[Kate]

Well i guess the thread lori made will answer your question and i don't get why like bitcoin should have anonymity but that is not there i guess. 

[Ajel]

Hello, I think the wallet address is publicly published Risky. Because some of these will try to hack my wallet. Many will want to know the wallet information in different ways.

[Degens]

You have the same risk as sharing your bank balance with someone.

[caveman2528]

But why u take risk to show ur wallet address and other link or any info about ur wallet, 💰 money in public 😂 ,its private hahah

[Karim]

the only thing u can worry about is actually getting money from an unknown person LUL !

[Lucas Holder]

I have a good news and a bad news. The bad news: all your addresses (that have received BTC) are already public and viewable on a blockchain explorer. The good news: they are not tied to your real identity (well, maybe the person/company who sent you BTC knows?) nor hackable so there's nothing to worry about. If someone (Bob) knows your addresses AND your identity, they could at worse know when you spend/receive money but most wallets use new addresses on every transaction so it would be hard to keep track of. That said, if you use a HD wallet and Bob knows your master public key, he could keep track of your transactions forever so I'd suggest you make a new wallet!

[Babacomputing]

It depends on the address you are talking about. There are two address when it comes to wallet. We have the public and private address or keys. If you share the public address with people there won't be any issue but the private one needs to be kept to yourself alone.