Vanity addresses, or vanity addresses, are cryptocurrency addresses personalized and created respecting a series of parameters given by the users of said addresses. This with the aim of making them more personal and easily identifiable, but without giving up the security they provide.
En Bitcoin you can find different types of addresses, including custom addresses, also known as Vanity address. The vanity addresses or Bitcoin vanity addresses they are normal addresses, with the same functionality as any other, they only contain a custom alphanumeric character string, a message or a special word for its owner.
The standard addresses that are generated in the wallets are composed of randomly ordered alphanumeric characters, without any special order or meaning. However, today, there is the ability to personalize these same addresses, and add a special touch, either through a name, a brand, a special word or a slightly more complete message.
WARNING
This article seeks to provide general information about vanity addresses. In addition to explaining how they can be created easily or safely. But at no time does it represent a recommendation from the websites or generators mentioned here. So it is recommended to do a personal and in-depth investigation of these means before using any. Remember that the only objective of Bit2Me Academy is to describe in a clear and simple way the concepts and tools available so that you can have a better understanding of the crypto ecosystem.
How are Vanity Addresses generated?
Taking advantage of the way how bitcoin addresses are generated, and since addresses can have random letters and numbers, after many attempts combinations can be found that make sense to us.
The process for generating a vanity address is exactly the same as generating a normal address, generating a private key, from which the public key will be derived. Then, from that public key a Bitcoin address will be generated, which will be verified to see if it meets the vanity pattern that is being sought. If so, it would result in a custom address that meets the requirements. Otherwise, it would be necessary to carry out the entire process again. This will be repeated until the desired address is found.
Generally, this process is repeated several hundred or millions of times, until the addresses with the desired pattern are found. Once the address is found, the user will have a "vanity address", being able to control it in the same way that any normal Bitcoin address is operated.
Ways to generate a vanity address
There are 2 methods by which vanity addresses can be generated. The safe method would be to generate them personally and privately, using computer equipment with the appropriate programs. Although to carry out this process it is necessary to have a certain degree of computer and programming knowledge.
The second method is much simpler and simpler, but also less secure and reliable. It consists of using some type of online service to generate these addresses, through which you would have a vanity address very quickly, since these services generally have a lot of processing power. But, at the same time, there is a risk that the owners of these services keep the private key that was generated with the address. Therefore, most likely, we would not be the only ones who have the private key associated with the vanity address. Which represents a very serious security breach.
Online services
To generate a vanity address, you can use external online services, that is, third-party services that offer the possibility of generating these addresses in a personalized way and appropriate to our needs. Many of these services generate vanity addresses for free or at a very low cost.
However, as already mentioned above, letting a third party get involved in generating your address that we are going to use is extremely dangerous, it could mean that said user also keeps the private keys associated with the created address and get hold of all money deposited at that address. Do not use this form of generation if not as an educational action.
Scripts
To generate a vanity address in a safe, private and personal way, you can use the VanityGen. Which is an open source vanity address generator where you will have control of the generation. You will need a minimum computer knowledge.
VanityGen allows you to create vanity addresses without an internet connection, and although its process can be very slow, it is the safest way to obtain this type of address. Since nobody else will know or have access to the private key, and therefore, the funds deposited in it will be safe.
However, according to the pattern or structure of the management that is desired, it will be the difficulty of the generation process, which can take days or even weeks. That is, depending on the number of letters that you want to obtain in the address, the generation process will be very fast or very delayed. Thus, with each character that is added, the difficulty of the generator to find the desired pattern will increase.
For example, if you want to generate an address that contains the word 1Bet, this pattern is appended in the VanityGen input data. The generator will then begin the process of finding a valid address that meets the established pattern. Once found, it will give a result similar to this:
Difficulty: 43891
Pattern: 1Bet
Address: 1Betx42BCrgrt56fgFrgkr4dfXer3gmIEf
Privkey: 5KBL5J2SCzoxCu8LSbur3vCcpzQQ5kL2JdRZDAu4AmCohko7goG
Where it specifies the difficulty of the process, the established pattern, the generated custom address and the associated private key.
Keep in mind that, in addition to the difficulty of the pattern, in the generation of a vanity address, the power and speed of your equipment also have a significant influence. So for the creation of this type of addresses it is recommended to use graphics processing equipment, known as GPU, since these teams have a much higher processing capacity than conventional CPUs.
How much do you know, cryptonuta?
Is it possible to duplicate a vanity address?TRUE!
One of the problems with Vanity Addresses is that these addresses can be duplicated if the conditions exist. This is because it is possible to extrapolate the cryptographic conditions that created the address in the first place. From there, a hacker can use a vanity address generator and a lot of computing power to get the same address and gain access to its private key. So it is important that if you are going to use a vanity address you are aware of this problem and take the respective measures to avoid subsequent security problems.
Vanity address security
While uniquely customizing a Bitcoin address could go a long way. Since it allows us to receive transactions safely and reduces the probability that a third party can change our address and replace it with another. On the other hand, it represents a security breach. This due to the possibility that another user generates an address very similar to ours. This could confuse and mislead our clients, causing them to send funds to another address.
On the other hand, if we use an online service to generate the address, there is the possibility that said service stores the address's private key. And with it, you can access our funds to steal them. For this reason, from Bit2Me we strongly recommend that if you want a vanity addres you generate it in a personal space controlled by you. That way, you can be sure that the private key is only under your control.
Finally, using the same address to receive payments is totally inadvisable, as it goes in the opposite direction of personal privacy that Bitcoin promotes.
A Vanity Address can be useful in a few and rare cases. But as a general rule it is not something that, from Bit2Me, we recommend to use.
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