How do I sign a message with my bitcoin wallet?

How do I sign a message with my bitcoin

wallet?

← General questions

If you are unverified, have two factor on and lose your phone then we

will ask you to sign a message with the address associated to the

address you sent bitcoins to when funding your account.

What is signing a message with a

bitcoin address?

A cool function of Bitcoin not mentioned in introductions is its message

signing and verification feature. I'll use the Satoshi client on a Mac as

the example but the same functions are available in the wallet at

blockchain.info and in any decent Bitcoin client.

Suppose you have a dispute with a vendor you paid in bitcoin. They say

you didn't pay them the correct amount or they didn't get paid at all. So

you show them

the record of the transaction

.

Great, says the vendor, but how do I know that's your coin?

In the Satoshi client, go to the "Receive Coins" tab. At the bottom, you'll

see an option that says, "Sign Message" (you can also go to File > Sign

Message). Enter the Bitcoin address that you own that initiated the

transaction (that's the address to the left of the green arrow in

the transaction record mentioned earlier) into the address form. Write

your message and then hit the "Sign Message" button.

The signature generated is unique to the address and to the message.

Send your address, the message and the signature to the vendor. They'll

take your info and enter it into the "Verify Message" function of Bitcoin,

usually located somewhere near the "Sign Message" button.

Images:

Bitcoin: Message Signing and Verification

This could have other uses found with some creativity. ; )

Another use for this feature.

Someone says they're me and you want proof. With this feature, it's a

kind of ID system for anons.

If you know that I have access to the address in the above example and

you give me a message to sign with that address, you can verify that it's

me at someothersite.com.

Videos and links.

Tutorials for how to sign messages

with different bitcoin wallets.

Blockchain.info

Electrum

CoinBase

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1526413-

how-do-i-sign-a-message-with-a-bitcoin-address-

Multibit wallet

https://multibit.org/en/help/v0.5/help_signAndVerifyMessage.html

if you are useing another wallet please google how to sign a message

with that wallet

if you are using a wallet that doesn't sign transactions then you will

have to import your private keys into one of the wallets above.