<p>"Using vanitygen you might think that you would be able to find the private key for a given address. In practice, this is considered impossible. Given that the difficulty increases exponentially the longer your vanity is, so does the average time required to find that vanity. The example table below shows how an increasingly complex vanity affects the difficulty and average time required to find a match only for that vanity, let alone the full address, for a machine capable of looking through 1 million keys per second."</p>

<p><a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen#Use_of_vanitygen_to_try_to_attack_addresses" rel="nofollow">https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen#Use_of_vanitygen_to_try_to_attack_addresses</a></p>

<p>vanity  difficulty  average time</p>

<p>1B  22  &lt; 1s</p>

<p>1Bi 1,330   &lt; 1s</p>

<p>1Bit    77,178  &lt; 1s</p>

<p>1Bitc   4,476,342 (4.48E+6) &lt; 10s</p>

<p>1Bitco  259,627,881 (2.6E+8)    3 minutes</p>

<p>1Bitcoi 15,058,417,127 (1.506E+10)  3 hours</p>

<p>1Bitcoin    8.7339E+11  1 week</p>

<p>1BitcoinE   5.0657E+13  1 year</p>

<p>1BitcoinEa  2.9381E+15  60 years</p>

<p>1BitcoinEat 1.7041E+17  3,500 years</p>

<p>1BitcoinEate    9.8837E+18  200,000 years</p>

<p>1BitcoinEater   5.7325E+20  11,700,000 years</p>

<p>1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSend    1.6209E+47  3.3E+33 or 3.3 decillion years</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-09T11:25:03.360Z
On the other hand: key reuse is bad for anonymity for yourself and others as well as reduces your security. Depending on how you generate the vanity address, you're also adding steps that can fail to the process of creating a private key and therefore possibly increase the chances of a MITM or other hacker gaining access to your key. All in all definitely less safe.
Jannes
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-10-02T18:38:30.797Z
Doesn't answer the question.
dns
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-06-09T01:36:08.737Z
2016-06-09T01:36:08.737Z
John
<p>I've been wondering if using vanitygen to create your own bitcoin address with a unique prefix, is safe from being compromise by others? I'm currently using a shared wallet address from a trusted website and I'm targeting now to create my own bitcoin address using vanitygen. Can someone enlighten me? Thank you!</p>

<wallet-security><vanitygen>
Is it really safe to use vanitygen to generate your unique bitcoin address?
Nikko Parin
# Is it really safe to use vanitygen to generate your unique bitcoin address?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-06-08)

I've been wondering if using vanitygen to create your own bitcoin address with a unique prefix, is safe from being compromise by others? I'm currently using a shared wallet address from a trusted website and I'm targeting now to create my own bitcoin address using vanitygen. Can someone enlighten me? Thank you!

**Tags:** wallet-security, vanitygen


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2016-06-09. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

"Using vanitygen you might think that you would be able to find the private key for a given address. In practice, this is considered impossible. Given that the difficulty increases exponentially the longer your vanity is, so does the average time required to find that vanity. The example table below shows how an increasingly complex vanity affects the difficulty and average time required to find a match only for that vanity, let alone the full address, for a machine capable of looking through 1 million keys per second."

<https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen#Use_of_vanitygen_to_try_to_attack_addresses>

vanity difficulty average time

1B 22 < 1s

1Bi 1,330 < 1s

1Bit 77,178 < 1s

1Bitc 4,476,342 (4.48E+6) < 10s

1Bitco 259,627,881 (2.6E+8) 3 minutes

1Bitcoi 15,058,417,127 (1.506E+10) 3 hours

1Bitcoin 8.7339E+11 1 week

1BitcoinE 5.0657E+13 1 year

1BitcoinEa 2.9381E+15 60 years

1BitcoinEat 1.7041E+17 3,500 years

1BitcoinEate 9.8837E+18 200,000 years

1BitcoinEater 5.7325E+20 11,700,000 years

1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSend 1.6209E+47 3.3E+33 or 3.3 decillion years

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: On the other hand: key reuse is bad for anonymity for yourself and others as well as reduces your security. Depending on how you generate the vanity address, you're also adding steps that can fail to the process of creating a private key and therefore possibly increase the chances of a MITM or other hacker gaining access to your key. All in all definitely less safe.  
> **username_3**: Doesn't answer the question.  

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