14
1
If I'm sending someone my wallet address, am I making my account balance visible to him?
As far as I understand, all transactions are public, which means that if I know an address, I can reconstruct the current account balance via the blockchain.
17
If your business partner knows your address, they can learn the transaction history and balance of that address. Often it is possible to guess or deduce that other addresses also belong to you, but this requires a bit more effort and is less reliable. However, this certainly doesn't translate to your complete wallet's balance and activity to be known.
This is why Bitcoin users are advised to generate a new address for every business interaction they have and why generally Bitcoin software makes it easy to create new addresses.
15
If I'm sending someone my wallet-address, am I making my account balance visible to him?
Yes.
all transactions are public, means if I know the wallet address, I can reconstruct the current account balance
Yes. All transactions of that address are in the blockchain, so they're public.
Owners of bitcoin addresses are not explicitly identified, but all transactions on the blockchain are public.
An address is a Bitcoin public key to which transactions can be sent.
A wallet is a collection of private keys that correspond to addresses.
means I can see how much money my business partner has? – Chris – 2017-12-25T17:13:31.203
@Chris yes, it's how the bitcoin blockchain works. – Зелёный – 2017-12-25T17:14:03.340
when I click on "receive" in my Bitcoin Knots app, it seems to generate a new bitcoin URI, each time I click it. – Chris – 2017-12-25T17:15:39.400
I dont know what is
Bitcoin Knots app, in context of one wallet address, you can find any in\out transaction of that address. – Зелёный – 2017-12-25T17:17:08.387@Chris keep in mind in bitcoin terms address != wallet. – Зелёный – 2017-12-25T17:18:11.953
So, if I can have different bitcoin addresses for even each transaction, I someone cannot reconstruct the content of my wallet correct? – Chris – 2017-12-25T17:20:16.077
@Chris the last comment is unclear for me. – Зелёный – 2017-12-25T17:21:36.627
1
I found this here: A Bitcoin address is a single-use token. Like e-mail addresses, you can send bitcoins to a person by sending bitcoins to one of their addresses. However, unlike e-mail addresses, people have many different Bitcoin addresses and a unique address should be used for each transaction. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address
– Chris – 2017-12-25T17:23:00.1902@Chris You can use only 1 Bitcoin address, but it is not advised. If you use multiple Bitcoin addresses, it is much harder to estimate how much money you have. Most wallets will generate a new address for every transaction to keep a certain anonymity. – Cedric Martens – 2017-12-25T18:04:55.807
3A small technical nitpick: an address is not a public key, but the address is derived from the public key. In common parlance, they're virtually the same thing, however. Good answer. – 4276 – 2017-12-25T18:18:11.617