How to generate a Vanity Algorand Address

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+---
+title: "How to Generate a Vanity Algorand Address"
+date: 2021-02-28T11:24:16-05:00
+type: "post"
+draft: false
+tags: [free-software, internet, software, cryptocurrency, software-release]
+---
+
+A vanity address is an address that has been generated such that it has some recognizable pattern.
+For example, if you want to accept Algorand at your business, you could generate a wallet whose address resemblese or matches a portion of your business name.
+Personally, I have an address which mathes my nickname, which is quite nice.
+
+To generate addresses, I created this Go program (Repo can be found [here](https://git.robbyzambito.me/Zambyte/vawg)).
+
+```
+package main
+
+import (
+    "fmt"
+    "github.com/algorand/go-algorand-sdk/crypto"
+    "github.com/algorand/go-algorand-sdk/mnemonic"
+    "os"
+    "regexp"
+    "runtime"
+)
+
+func main() {
+    walletChan := make(chan string)
+    pattern := os.Args[1]
+    for i := 0; i < runtime.NumCPU(); i++ {
+        go func() {
+            for {
+                account := crypto.GenerateAccount()
+                go func(acc crypto.Account) {
+                    m, _ := mnemonic.FromPrivateKey(acc.PrivateKey)
+                    wallet := fmt.Sprintf("%s:%s\n", acc.Address, m)
+                    matched, _ := regexp.MatchString(pattern, wallet)
+                    if matched {
+                        walletChan <- wallet
+                    }
+                }(account)
+            }
+        }()
+    }
+
+    fmt.Println(<-walletChan)
+    os.Exit(0)
+
+}
+```
+*This script is made available under the [0-clause BSD license](license/LICENSE.txt)*
+
+To run this program, you must have Go installed on your machine.
+I will assume you have it installed for this post.
+If you need help installing it, you can reach out to me, and I will try to help you get set up.
+
+You can install the this by running the following command, which should automatically build and install the dependencies.
+
+```
+$ go install git.robbyzambito.me/Zambyte/vawg/v2@latest
+```
+
+If you have go installed properly, this should add the vawg binary to your $PATH.
+You can then generate a wallet by passing a regular expression as an argument.
+Here is an example of running the program:
+
+```
+$ vawg "^H[E3]LL[0O]"
+H3LLOVA5RAKHN5ZDL6TMO5UF3XH5VS4UWELAL7UUFWKO6NUFALLK3BPM3I:number frog indicate over verb stable ignore salute leopard loop merit neither attract wrap assume pluck rely firm album deny shield dumb visit absent canal
+```
+*I advise against using this wallet since I posted it on the internet.*
+
+This took about two minutes to run on my machine with a Ryzen 7 3700X.
+If it seems to hang and eat up a lot of CPU, that means it's working :)
+
+A few things to note:
+- Wallet addresses are in full caps, so if you do not pass it a full caps string it will never find a wallet.
+- The regular expression matches against the whole output.
+  The ^ means that it should match against the beginning of the output.
+  This is usually what you want.
+- Since it uses regular expressions, you could increase the results you would accept (and potentially cut down on search time) by providing accepted alternatives.
+  This is shown in the example, where a 3 is accepted in place of an E, and a 0 would be accepted in place of an O.
+
+The seed phrase (the sequence of words after the "`:`") can be used to add the wallet to whatever wallet app you use.