Crypto glossary
Stealth address
A stealth address lets a recipient publish one public identifier while each payment goes to a fresh one-time address that observers cannot link to it.
With stealth addresses, the recipient publishes a meta-address made of public keys. For every payment, the sender combines those keys with fresh randomness to compute a new one-time address and publishes a small piece of data alongside the transaction. Only the recipient, scanning the chain with a private viewing key, can recognise the payment and derive the key to spend it.
Monero uses one-time addresses for every transaction by default, which is a core part of its privacy model. On Ethereum, ERC-5564 standardised stealth addresses in 2023, and some wallets and apps support them for receiving payments privately. Bitcoin's silent payments follow a similar idea adapted to UTXOs.
Stealth addresses hide who received funds, not who sent them or how much, unless combined with other techniques. Recipients bear the cost of scanning, which is heavy for light wallets. On account-based chains, spending from a stealth address requires gas, and funding it from a known wallet can undo the privacy. Usage remains small outside privacy coins.
Example
A charity shares one stealth meta-address; donors' wallets generate a new Ethereum address for each gift, so the charity's total donations are not visible from any single public address.