Why Does Your Bitcoin Wallet Address Keep Changing? (2024)

Getting started with Bitcoin can be a scary and intimidating avenue to pursue, with so many technical aspects to understand it can quickly become frustrating for those who aren't technically inclined. If you're a "normie" getting started with Bitcoin and you've set up a wallet address and performed a few transactions, you may have found a startling discovery, the wallet address you used previously no longer displays in your wallet.

For most of us, our default reaction is "I am being hacked", but this is far from the case, in fact, its a security protocal built into the Bitcoin network.

Why Bitcoin Addresses keeps changing

When you send funds from your Bitcoin wallet, the specified amount of funds are sent to the intended Bitcoin address, while the remainder of the funds stored in the sending bitcoin address is sent to what is referred to as a "change" bitcoin address associated with the same bitcoin wallet.

The change is not available to spend until the bitcoin transaction gets confirmed on the bitcoin network (funds get delivered to the intended address).

This may sound a bit complex but allow me to break it down in a more practical manner. Consider the example of taking a $20 bill out of your wallet to pay for a $5 cup of coffee. You would give the $20 to the cashier, and the cashier would give you back the $15. While the $15 belongs to you, it is not available for the time it takes the cashier to give you back your change, which is what happens when the address change happens.

Note: Change addresses work the same way on the Bitcoin Cash network.

Do wallet address changes happen for all cryptocurrencies?

While you may notice that your Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash addresses change every time you receive funds, other cryptocurrencies don't apply the same rules. In the case of Ethereum address will not change.

Should you be panicking?

There is no need to be alarmed by this. These automatically generated addresses after every transaction are done to protect your privacy so that a third-party can not view all other trades associated with your account only by using a blockchain explorer to look-up an address they know to be yours.

What happens to the previous addresses?

All addresses generated for your account will remain associated with your private key account forever. They are safe to re-use to receive future payments, but for the prior stated reasons, we recommend using a unique address for all transactions.

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