Concepts

Change Address

An address that receives the "change" from a Bitcoin transaction

Category: Concepts Also known as: 2 Related terms: 3

Definition

When a wallet spends a UTXO of 5 BTC but only sends 1 BTC, the remaining 4 BTC goes back to a fresh "change address" that the wallet controls. Often new and unused before, which makes change-detection a useful clustering heuristic.

Context anchor

~60-80% of TXs have a change output; modern wallets randomize change-address position

Example

Wallet sends 5 BTC, receives 4.99 BTC back as change to a fresh address

Also known as

change addresschange output