<blockquote>
  <p>It's generally accepted that using one address for multiple transactions is unsafe, because sending a transaction reveals your public key (whereas only the hash of your public key is required to receive transactions).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It's not unsafe. It is however gratuitously giving up privacy - yours, and that of others you interact with.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-14T19:03:38.663Z
2018-04-14T19:03:38.663Z
Pieter Wuille
<p>It's generally accepted that using one address for multiple transactions is unsafe, because sending a transaction reveals your public key (whereas only the hash of your public key is required to receive transactions).</p>

<p>If this is actually a safety concern, why do the biggest exchanges like Binance reuse their core storage addresses for many months, storing hundreds of millions of dollars? For example, Binance cold storage has 100 transactions:
<a href="https://blockchain.info/address/16ftSEQ4ctQFDtVZiUBusQUjRrGhM3JYwe" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blockchain.info/address/16ftSEQ4ctQFDtVZiUBusQUjRrGhM3JYwe</a>
and Binance hot storage makes hundreds of transactions every day:
<a href="https://blockchain.info/address/1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blockchain.info/address/1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s</a></p>

<p>As a side question, in theory everyone knows the public key of these addresses since they have outgoing transactions. Where is this information written? I can't find it on the transaction page of Blockchain.info:
<a href="https://blockchain.info/tx/4d5b7175b4553d3239dae830837045adbe880b3d57dfc0c59a1bb8e6991b8ff8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://blockchain.info/tx/4d5b7175b4553d3239dae830837045adbe880b3d57dfc0c59a1bb8e6991b8ff8</a></p>

<security><public-key><binance>
Why do the biggest exchanges reuse Bitcoin addresses if doing so is unsafe?
rampatowl
# Why do the biggest exchanges reuse Bitcoin addresses if doing so is unsafe?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-04-14)

It's generally accepted that using one address for multiple transactions is unsafe, because sending a transaction reveals your public key (whereas only the hash of your public key is required to receive transactions).

If this is actually a safety concern, why do the biggest exchanges like Binance reuse their core storage addresses for many months, storing hundreds of millions of dollars? For example, Binance cold storage has 100 transactions:
<https://blockchain.info/address/16ftSEQ4ctQFDtVZiUBusQUjRrGhM3JYwe>
and Binance hot storage makes hundreds of transactions every day:
<https://blockchain.info/address/1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s>

As a side question, in theory everyone knows the public key of these addresses since they have outgoing transactions. Where is this information written? I can't find it on the transaction page of Blockchain.info:
<https://blockchain.info/tx/4d5b7175b4553d3239dae830837045adbe880b3d57dfc0c59a1bb8e6991b8ff8>

**Tags:** security, public-key, binance


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-04-14. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

> It's generally accepted that using one address for multiple transactions is unsafe, because sending a transaction reveals your public key (whereas only the hash of your public key is required to receive transactions).

It's not unsafe. It is however gratuitously giving up privacy - yours, and that of others you interact with.


---

