I've got the 25 GEMS sitting in the app wallet from the one referral I made - very cool. As it's showing as 25 GEMS and 0 BTC, I'm assuming this is an offchain amount per the recent app update.
True.
If I want to transfer GEMS offchain to onchain in the future, how will this work?
Copy to clipboard / or scan the QR address you want to send GEMS to --> Go to wallet tab and press on the wallet icon in the bottom right --> enter the amount of GEMS --> press confirm --> enter 4 digit PIN
For example, when I used my secret passphrase to log onto counterwallet, it shows all zero balances (i.e. no GEMS).
This is because the GEMS showed in the app are off-chain compared to GEMS displayed in counterparty which are are on-chain (an off-chain transaction is the movement of value outside of the block chain).
If I try to send my 25 gems from the app wallet into the counterwallet address generated by the secret passphrase, the GetGems app says that the address is invalid.
There shouldn't be a problem - what address are you trying to send to?
Additionally, the offchain address attached to the app is now a different address than the one generated by the secret pass phrase. And I don't see a mechanism to find the private key for the offchain address, to perhaps import it into the onchain counterwallet account.
We hold the private keys to the off-chain addresses. When a user sends GEMS to his off-chain address his account gets credited with GEMS inside the app (very similar to how poloniex / coinbase and others work). This is a hybrid semi centralized database system meant for smaller balances and to allow for speed, security and zero transaction fees between GetGems users. GEMS are able to withdrawn to any external counterparty wallet (the fee is 1 GEM).
This hybrid solution is good for the "Airdrop" and for new users while not taking from the security of users that want to have their GEMS only on-chain outside of the app.
I've been interested and using BTC since spring of 2013, but don't have any experience with offchain transactions. Any explanation on how to move between onchain and offchain accounts is greatly appreciated. I saw some explanation earlier in this thread about how to do this using XCP, but I haven't figured out how to view my offchain GEMS in Counterwallet. Thanks.
You can read more about the difference between on-chain and off-chain transactions
here.