Stellar vanity addresses
A Stellar vanity address is an ordinary Stellar account whose public address contains a word you can read, like GDREAMIEST5NQE4CIM… or …GQWXTURQUOISE. It works exactly like any other account in every wallet; it is simply easier to recognise, to check and to remember.
What a Stellar address is made of
Every Stellar account address is 56 characters long and starts with G. The rest encodes the account's public key in base32, so it uses only the letters A–Z and the digits 2–7 (no 0, 1, 8 or 9). The last few characters include a checksum, so a typo is caught by the wallet.
One detail matters for vanity addresses: the character right after the G can only be A, B, C or D. A word that starts with one of those letters can sit right after the G (GDREAMIEST…); any other word starts one character later (GAWHIMPERED…). Words at the end have no such limit.
How vanity addresses are found
An address cannot be chosen: it is derived from a random private key. To get a word in it, a program generates keys one after another and keeps the one whose address happens to contain the word. Each extra character makes the search 32 times longer:
| Characters | Keys to try (on average) | Time on one NVIDIA L4 GPU |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | 1.1 × 109 | 11 seconds |
| 7 | 3.4 × 1010 | 6 minutes |
| 8 | 1.1 × 1012 | 3 hours |
| 9 | 3.5 × 1013 | 4 days |
| 10 | 1.1 × 1015 | 130 days |
That is why short vanity addresses are cheap and long ones are rare. KeyPlates runs this search on GPUs around the clock and sells what it finds: 4809 addresses are in the catalogue right now, from $2. For a word of your own, a custom order shows the price and delivery time as you type.
The problem with buying one, and how KeyPlates solves it
Whoever searched for an address holds its private key. If a seller simply hands you that key, they could keep a copy and empty the account later. You would have to trust them forever.
KeyPlates never hands over a key. Stellar accounts can have several signers with weights, and delivery uses that:
- You pay from your own wallet. The key that pays is the key that will control the address.
- One transaction creates the vanity account, adds your key as its only signer, and sets the weight of the original key (the one we found) to 0.
- From that moment the original key can sign nothing for the account. A copy of it, ours or anyone's, is worthless.
You do not have to take our word for it: the verify page reads the account from the Stellar network and shows its signers and thresholds. Any explorer, such as StellarExpert, shows the same, and so does the independent checker at splitkey.me, which also explains rotation in detail.
How to buy one
- Pick an address in the catalogue and choose XLM or USDC.
- Pay with a connected wallet (Lobstr, Varial/Freighter, xBull, Albedo, HOT Wallet, Ledger) or scan the payment QR with your wallet app. Pay from your own wallet, not from an exchange: an exchange account has no key of yours to make the signer.
- Delivery is automatic and usually takes under a minute. Add the address to your wallet as described in the FAQ.
Vanity addresses and federation names
Stellar also has federation addresses such as name*example.com, which a server translates into a G… address. They are handy for typing, but they depend on that server, and many wallets show the G… address anyway. A vanity address needs no server: the word is part of the account itself, on-chain, forever.
Stay safe: address poisoning
Recognisable addresses attract a common scam. Bots create accounts that start and end like yours and send you a tiny payment, hoping you will later copy their address from your history. Always copy addresses from your wallet's account screen or address book, never from the transaction history. More in the FAQ.