Alice owns three addresses A1
, A2
, A3
. She decides to collect the coins held by these addresses into a single coin so she generates a fresh new address A4
for that.
She has the following two options:
1. Single transaction
+--------------+
|A1 A4|
|A2 -> |
|A3 |
+--------------+
2. Multiple transactions
+--------------+
|A1 A4|
+--------------+
+--------------+
|A2 A4|
+--------------+
+--------------+
|A3 A4|
+--------------+
She does not want people to know that A1
, A2
and A3
are owned by her. And she does not intend to use any mixing services. She also don't mind paying more transaction fees as in option 2.
Option 1
A1
, A2
and A3
can be linked together assuming she did not use any Coin Join technique.
Option 2
It can be seen that A4
is reused to receive payments. However A4
has never been seen before this transaction.
Questions on Option 2:
Can someone observing the Blockchain deterministically figure out
A1
,A2
andA3
belong to same user?If Alice now spendsA4
to Bob (sends all amount, she never usesA4
again), can Bob ever figure out thatA1
,A2
andA3
belonged to Alice?What privacy will Alice (or someone down the trail, like Bob) lose if she goes for option 2?
Is reusing addresses to only receive payments and spending that address only once okay?