Most modern bitcoin wallets are HD wallets. This means they generate private keys from seed words and provide an extended public key to derive bitcoin addresses. Let dive into how an xpub is useful and how to get your wallet xpub key.

Why You Need An xPub Key

The xPub key is the master key that all of your addresses are made from. If you use the same address for each and every payment, the balance of that address is exposed to each new user who sends to that address. This results in a loss of privacy.

When you use an xPub key, a new address is generated for each new invoice and web store payment so each and every payment is a new address. This not only preserves your own privacy; it also increases the privacy of the sender as well.

xPub Keys are also useful for the following:

Checking the balance of your entire wallet instead of one address at a time.

Preserving privacy by reducing address reuse on the blockchain.

Generating new invoices without having to open your wallet each time.

Keeping your private keys private and in your own wallet. Centralized services like Coinbase and BitPay don’t allow you to hold your own private keys.

You can keep your private keys safe in your wallet and receive payments on your website via services like Blockonomics and BTCPay.

Exodus Wallet (Desktop)

Exodus is possibly the biggest name in desktop bitcoin wallets with support for dozens of other assets as well. Here’s how you can locate you xPub key with Exodus wallet

Open Exodus wallet and open your Bitcoin (BTC) wallet.

2. You should see three small dots in the top right corner of the page. Click on those dots and you should see the option to “Export xPub”. Click that.

3. You should receive a message that says “Your xPub has successfully been exported” and show the file path that points to where your xpub was exported to.

4. Exodus will export 2 xPub keys. The first key is the legacy format (which is the one that you want) and the second one will not work correctly with Blockonomics.

Blockchain (Online w/ Desktop)

Blockchain is one of the older wallets in the bitcoin space and can be used to receive payments. As far as I know, you are not able to export your xPub key on the Blockchain mobile wallet. This is the only way that I currently know of but I am always happy to be proven wrong if you know of a way.

Here are the required steps to export your xPub key on the blockchain wallet.

Login into your Blockchain wallet.

2. Click on “Settings” in the lower left corner.

3. Click on “Wallets & Addresses” within the drop-down menu. This will reveal your wallets and the addresses associated with them. On the right side of the page, click on the button that says “Manage”.

4. Click on “More Options” on the right side of the screen. This should drop down to give you a couple of options. One of them is “Show xPub”.

5. This final step will show you the actual xPub key in both text as well as a QR code in the event that you need to scan it for something.

That’s it. Now you can configure your wallet in Blockonomics.

Trezor (Hardware Wallet)

Trezor is one of the oldest and most trusted hardware wallets in the Bitcoin industry. Here’s how you can locate your xPub key with the Trezor online client software.

Here are directions to locate your xPub key from Trezor here: https://wiki.trezor.io/User_manual:Displaying_account_public_key_(XPUB)

Ledger (Hardware Wallet)

Ledger is also one of the oldest hardware wallets in the Bitcoin space. You can find more info on how to locate your xPub key with Ledger here: https://blockonomics.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/33000231821-ledger-with-blockonomics

Electrum (Desktop)

Accessing your xPub key can be done a number of different ways with Electrum. Not only can you use Electrum to generate an xPub key on your own computer, but you can also use a number of hardware wallets to generate an xPub key.

Open up Electrum on your desktop. At the top of the screen, click “Wallet” and then “Information”.

3. Copy/Paste the long string of numbers that starts with “xPub”.

4. That’s it. Now all you need to do is paste this in your Blockonomics profile and configure your API key to accept Bitcoin (BTC) payments.

Wasabi Wallet (Desktop)

Wasabi (Desktop)

Wasabi is the industry leader in privacy with a bitcoin-only wallet for desktop. Here’s how to locate your xPub key in Wasabi wallet.

1. Open Wasabi wallet.

2. Load the wallet that you would like the xpub key for. In this example, I have made a wallet named “Blockonomics”.

3. As soon as your wallet has loaded, click on “Advanced Info” on the right side of the screen.

4. You should be able to see several different pieces of information. One of these lines should say “Extended Account Public Key” and a long string of numbers and letter should be to the right. You want the one that begins with “xpub”

Note: You may not able to scroll to the right to view the entire xpub key so you might need to try this with a large monitor.

Locating Your xPub Key With Additional Wallets

We understand that there are a multitude of wallets in the bitcoin space and more coming online every year. If you think we should add more wallets to this article, please let us know so we can review your request.