Stealth Addresses

All transactions and account balances on Ethereum are public by default. This transparency is a tradeoff that comes with the self-custody of finances through a public blockchain. But as far as tradeoffs go, it’s a significant one. Imagine if you could see everyone’s bank account details on LinkedIn—this creates strange social dynamics and raises serious privacy concerns.

That's why I'm constantly on the lookout for new onchain privacy products that help maintain anonymity across my wallets. One of the most straightforward approaches is the use of stealth addresses.

Stealth addresses allow users to receive funds without exposing their public key or transaction history. When someone wants to send you $20, you provide them with a one-time-use stealth address instead of your main account. This way, your financial activities remain private, and your professional and personal transactions don’t co-mingle.

For years, I’ve implemented my own version of stealth addresses by creating new accounts in Metamask. This method was hacky and, frankly, provided a poor user experience. Managing balances across hundreds of wallets became a tedious task.

Recently, I discovered a product that ‘just works’ called Fluidkey. Fluidkey allows you to log in with a single address and generate new addresses on the fly. This is a significant upgrade in terms of user experience and privacy. I can view and manage my balance across all of my accounts from a single dashboard. Fluidkey’s use of ENS means I can send my friends the same human-readable address, like ‘philm.fkey.eth’, and any payment will automatically be routed to a fresh stealth address.

Privacy solutions that "just work" are essential for broader adoption. Fluidkey is one of the first products I’ve seen that balances privacy and usability, eliminating the need to choose between the two.