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I'm confused what are stealth addresses. Can someone ELI5 what stealth addresses are, how they are generated and used?

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Q: What are stealth addresses?

Stealth addresses are what ensure the unlinkability of Monero transactions. Someone can publish a Monero address and be assured that all incoming payments will be sent to unique one-time-use addresses that cannot be linked to either the published address or any other address connected to the transaction.

Q: How they are generated and used?

According to the CryptoNote white paper

A sender generates a one-time public key based on the recipient’s address and some random data. In this sense, an incoming transaction for the same recipient is sent to a one-time public key (not directly to a unique address) and only the recipient can recover the corresponding private part to redeem his funds (using his unique private key).

Q:What are the differences between integrated and stealth addresses?

Integrated address serve a different purpose than stealth addresses. Integrated address contain data from a normal Monero address (public view key and public spend key) plus a payment ID serialized into the address.

Integrated address perform the same task as regular addresses used with separate payment IDs except they are encrypted (which separate payment IDs are not) and easier to use since senders can just use one address (instead of needing to use an address plus a separate payment ID).

Stealth addresses are automatic with Monero, so any payment sent to an integrated address will automatically make use of stealth addressing. They are fully compatible.

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  • Perhaps the question should be edited to better fit with this answer, because this isn't really an ELI5 answer.
    – dEBRUYNE
    Aug 11, 2016 at 10:39

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