5

I have a few wallets (tz1...), but I would like to only use one. Is it possible to delete a wallet? If so, does the blockchain record this action?

Is there actually any benefit for the blockchain for deleting accounts? The number of unique wallets is of course very very high, enough to satisfy any potential demand, so releasing account numbers is unlikely to be of any help. Perhaps, adding information of deletion of wallets to the blockchain might just add redundant information to it, unnecessarily increasing its size.

2 Answers 2

6

I am talking from memory of the transition from proto 002 to proto 003 so hopefully I got it right.

If you go on tzscan you will see that there is a counter for addresses

https://tzscan.io/tz1hAYfexyzPGG6RhZZMpDvAHifubsbb6kgn

When this counter is not zero it means the address is « alive » which means in practice that it has a non-zero balance and on practical terms it is taking a non-zero space in the blockchain context.

You can create tons of addresses but as long as they do have 0 balance they do not take any space in the context (and the counter stays at 0). Also if you empty an account there is no longer a storage associated with it and the counter goes back to 0.

Now in order to put balance into an empty address or to bring back the balance of a non-empty account back to 0 costs a fee (since proto 003 and I believe the amount is 0.257xtz).

All in all I would say that bring the balance back to 0 is the closest you can get to « destroy » an address since it does no longer consume any space in the blockchain’s context.

Please note that all of the above applies to implicit addresses (tz...). Originated contracts (KT..) cannot be deleted even with 0 balance (as of proto 003)

3

If there has been any transactions to or from any of these wallets they will be on the chain forever.

You can "forget" them on your tezos node using:

tezos-client forget address <name> -f

The -f (force) option will remove the keys from disk (if present).

2
  • 1
    Of course there will be a registry of transactions with the wallet forever (whole point of the blockchain). But is it possible to tell the blockchain a wallet has been destroyed? Is it ever useful?
    – luchonacho
    Feb 28, 2019 at 9:31
  • 1
    Not to my knowledge, no. Feb 28, 2019 at 10:32

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.