Filter ยท how the strings look
Addresses that do not spell the name
An unusual filter that came out of looking at all twenty nine strings on this site at once. Seven markets publish addresses that begin with their own name. Two mostly do not, and that turns out to matter for how you check.
What a vanity address is
An onion address is computed from a public key, so you cannot choose it directly. What you can do is generate keys over and over until one produces an address that starts with the characters you wanted. Four or five characters takes minutes on an ordinary machine, seven or eight takes days, twelve is out of reach and the whole fifty six is impossible.
That is the whole economics of it, and it explains both why markets do it and why forgers do it.
The habit it trains
If every genuine address you have ever seen for a market starts with its name, you learn to accept an address because the front looks right. The front is precisely the part somebody else can reproduce cheaply, so the habit the branding builds is the habit the forgery exploits.
What to take from it
This is not a reason to avoid markets with vanity addresses, and seven of the nine here have them. It is a reason to check the middle of a string rather than the opening, on every market, including the ones whose names you would recognise instantly.
The two sets that do not read as a word
| Market | Since | Coins | Addresses | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WeTheNorth | 2021 | BTC, XMR | 3 | Canada, English and French |
| TorZon Market | 2022 | BTC, XMR | 5 | Global, English |
| Market | Addresses spelling the name | What the set looks like |
|---|---|---|
| WeTheNorth | None of three | All three share an eight character opening that spells nothing |
| TorZon | One of five | Four of the five open with nothing readable |
The TorZon case is the awkward one. A reader who has half learned that a real address starts with the brand will look at four genuine addresses and think they are wrong, then look at a forged one and think it is right. A mixed set is worse for that habit than a consistent one in either direction.
What to actually do
- Keep your own dated file of the sets you use.
- Paste both strings into one empty box, one under the other, and see whether the lines are the same length and line up.
- If you insist on eyeballing it, read characters twenty through forty. Same second, better second.
- Treat a recognisable word at the front as decoration. On every market, including the two on this page.