Cryptocurrency
What is Stealth address?
A stealth address is a one-time destination address generated for each payment so that transactions to the same recipient cannot be linked. It is why a Monero recipient can publish a single address without every payment to it becoming publicly correlatable.
Why Stealth address matters
It is why a Monero recipient can publish a single address without every payment to it becoming publicly correlatable.
Stealth address in practice
When you run a server that accepts cryptocurrency, a stealth address changes where you point your wallet. You generate a fresh address per invoice rather than reusing a static one. You watch your payment daemon for the one-time destination and match it to the customer. Getting it wrong—reusing an address—leaks correlation between payments. That defeats the point and can cost you privacy or contractual trust.
What people get wrong about Stealth address
People assume a stealth address is a secret address that hides the recipient's identity from the sender. It is not. The sender still sees the address and the amount. What it hides is linkability between separate payments to the same recipient, so outside observers cannot tell they went to the same person.
Stealth address — common questions
Does a stealth address hide the amount sent?
No. A stealth address only prevents linking separate payments to the same recipient. The amount and the one-time address are visible on-chain. Amount privacy requires additional technology like RingCT, which Monero uses alongside stealth addresses.
Can I reuse a stealth address?
No, that defeats its purpose. A stealth address is generated for a single payment. Reusing it makes payments correlatable again, exactly what the mechanism is designed to prevent. Always generate a fresh one per transaction.
More from cryptocurrency
- Monero
- Monero is a cryptocurrency that hides sender, receiver and amount at the protocol level using ring signatures, stealth addresses and RingCT.
- Ring signature
- A ring signature proves that one member of a group signed a message without revealing which one.
- RingCT
- RingCT conceals transaction amounts on the Monero blockchain while still allowing the network to verify that inputs equal outputs.
- Stablecoin
- A stablecoin is a token pegged to a fiat currency, typically the US dollar, and backed by reserves held by an issuer.
- TRC-20
- TRC-20 is the token standard on the TRON blockchain, most commonly used for USDT.
- Confirmation
- A confirmation is a block added to the chain after the block containing a transaction, each making reversal exponentially harder.
- Atomic swap
- An atomic swap exchanges two cryptocurrencies directly between wallets, with cryptography guaranteeing that either both sides complete or neither does.