What are stealth addresses and why are they important when using XMR (Monero)?
Stealth addresses are a privacy feature of Monero (XMR) that allow users to send and receive payments without revealing their public address.
This is done by generating a one-time address for each transaction, which is derived from the sender’s public address and the recipient’s private view key. This ensures that the recipient’s public address is never revealed, making it impossible for anyone to track or trace the transaction. The importance of stealth addresses lies in their ability to protect user privacy.
By hiding the recipient’s public address, it becomes much more difficult for third parties to track or trace transactions on the Monero blockchain. This makes it much harder for malicious actors to target specific users or groups of users, as well as making it more difficult for governments and other entities to monitor and regulate Monero transactions. In addition, stealth addresses also help protect against double-spending attacks, as they make it impossible for attackers to know which addresses have already been used in a transaction.