Help talk:FAQ

Remove SLL?

I want to suggest removing the "purchase Bitcoins via Paypal through virwox" suggestion from this page: faq#Can_I_buy_bitcoins_with_Paypal.3F

For the following reasons:

1. .02 btc minimum purchase
2. 24-48 hour btc withdraw hold for new accounts
3. 5%+ fees for the two trades necessary
4. Low volume / poor arbitrated markets (current buy/sell is ~547 / 535 with today's price being $513)
5. Two trades needed means not easy to figure out buy/sell prices at a glance
6. Arbitrarily limits on "fractions of USD" and SLL amounts means you will likely loose a dollar in their system (can't cash out completely).
7. Not a good/straightforward experience for those new to Bitcoin

- Asperous (talk) 08:10, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Why does my Bitcoin address keep changing?

Can we make one thing clear?

"Unlike postal and email addresses, Bitcoin addresses are designed to be used exactly once only, for a single transaction."

is a blatant lie. Now - do we want to be a source of objective and reliable information here? Or do we want to be an outlet for privacy/anonymity zealots' propaganda?

Facts are:

- nothing in the bitcoin protocol prevents addresses reuse, which clearly implies that they were NOT single-use by design. <-- period The single-use is being encouraged for very different reasons than incompatibility with bitcoin design.

- address reuse has advantages in numerous situations, which include but are not limited to:

• passing the address only once over secure channel towards entities who are not constantly capable of secured information exchange
• publication of addresses on static or semi-static web pages, without any backend integration need
• using "mnemonical" addresses, which are relatively hard to obtain
• ..

Instead of telling lies that "bitcoin addresses are /designed/ to be used exactly once only", which definitely is not true, people should be informed about what are good and what are bad sides of address reuse. If disadvantages outweigh the advantages - people will stop reusing the addresses (at least in most situations) by themselves, and after a thoughtful consideration, rather than due to being lied to and misinformed.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Silverdr (talk • contribs) at 13:41, 27 October 2014‎ (UTC)

Sounds like you're misinformed. Nothing in the Bitcoin protocol prevents address reuse because 1) there is no such thing as addresses in the Bitcoin protocol, and 2) preventing address reuse is not something that can realistically be done. Regardless of the excuses for reusing them, the reality is that when it works, it does so only by accident. Addresses are in fact designed to be single-use, and when people reuse them it breaks that assumption, which is why many negative effects (to both themselves and others) result from it. People have had bitcoins stolen because they reused addresses. --Luke-jr (talk) 00:02, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

* "Nothing in the Bitcoin protocol prevents address reuse because 1) there is no such thing as addresses in the Bitcoin protocol, and 2) preventing address reuse is not something that can realistically be done"

So what you say is that designer(s) of Bitcoin couldn't realistically design Bitcoin to use addresses (sorry there are no addresses, right?) only once and reject transaction to the same address if it was used already before. Do I understand correctly that this means that Bitcoin was NOT designed to accept only one transaction to a particular address?

* "the reality is that when it works, it does so only by accident"

The reality is that when it works (always) it does so by "accident" of fulfilling all requirements for a valid transaction. If that is an accident then all this Bitcoin thing works actually only by accident. Please, please stop spreading FUD and replace it with solid information. This site gets some momentum and it is very disappointing to see what kind of information people get from it.

* "Addresses are in fact designed to be single-use"

Please also back your claim for a "fact" by something, which can be verified/falsified. Please show or point to the design, which shows clearly that it was /designed/ so. Even if that /design/ didn't take any measures to enforce itself. Without that, your words about "facts" and "design" are just empty, wishful words.

* "People have had bitcoins stolen because they reused addresses"

Yes, and a man who reused addresses fell off the stairs and broke his skull! Please - if this is not FUD then I really don't know what it is. When and where people had their coins stolen *because* they reused addresses, and not because the early implementations weren't secure enough and didn't take some cases into consideration? Or because they didn't understand things and lacked solid, reliable information. Or because of tons of other reasons, all of which you can read around the net? Even the all beloved, ever-address-changing (!) HD wallets are not secure in some edge cases for which they /were/ actually designed (the "H" part in HD). Why don't you tell this?! They do change the address, and.. ?

I really mean you are adding to the confusion of already many well confused, potential new users with this approach and this kind of quality of information. I am sorry to say that and I believe it's a great pity because it doesn't help them and doesn't help Bitcoin in general.

OK, you won. I am not going to change the section again. I know you'll put your (untrue) words back anyway and I have better things to do than push this back and forth on an idealistic crusade. But I try again and urge you to help people understand things by providing facts *ONLY*, rather than personal beliefs/wishes/opinions. Something backed with references to reliable sources, showing clearly, beyond doubt that your words provide a solid information.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Silverdr (talk • contribs) at 20:20, 28 October 2014‎ (UTC)

While I agree that address reuse should be discouraged, saying that addresses were designed to be single-use is probably not true. See the following transactions, broadcast by Satoshi Nakamoto:

• f4184fc596403b9d638783cf57adfe4c75c605f6356fbc91338530e9831e9e16 (the 10 BTC sent to Hal)
• a16f3ce4dd5deb92d98ef5cf8afeaf0775ebca408f708b2146c4fb42b41e14be
• 591e91f809d716912ca1d4a9295e70c3e78bab077683f79350f101da64588073
• 12b5633bad1f9c167d523ad1aa1947b2732a865bf5414eab2f9e5ae5d5c191ba
• 828ef3b079f9c23829c56fe86e85b4a69d9e06e5b54ea597eef5fb3ffef509fe
• d71fd2f64c0b34465b7518d240c00e83f6a5b10138a7079d1252858fe7e6b577

Taras (talk) 22:24, 28 October 2014 (UTC)