Topic: Bitcoin for the homeless - page 2. (Read 1775 times)

It's quite interesting. It looks as if they may monitor activity, because it seems to slow down after a while. If I log off, and log on again with a different address, then it speeds up again. I hear what you say about the port, and that answers the next q. I was going to ask.

When I started, I could click on the activity bar, and I got a pretty activity graph. That facility seems to  have gone. Is there a way to get it back?

Correct. The early data is also not verified in depth until a checkpoint is reached.


As long as it shuts down cleanly you can do this as often as you like it will continue where it left off.


Most public WiFi is restricted to certain ports (mainly http(s) and common mail ports). Bitcoin core uses 8333 by default which is rarely open. You might have a better chance if you can use a VPN as they are mostly allowed form public WiFi. You might also get high bandwith from a library or university. For a university you will probably have to ask someone to share WiFi as they are commonly restricted to students.

Currently my data directory is 57.6 GB it might take you a while jumping from free WiFi to free WiFi to catch up.

It's interesting to watch what is happening, so I guess I'll carry on with the longhand system for a while. I've got 3.5 years of data to go, and I guess it will slow up as there are probably more transaction per year in the recent years. I'm impressed with the way it keeps restarting despite the shutdowns and network failures.

It's interesting that Sainsburys won't allow access to the blockchain, but then they do own a banking service. They do have some strange ideas about site restrictions though. They won't let me look at Kitco gold prices, but they will allow me to look at Kitco copper futures. They also blocked an electric shaver review page. Maybe they don't like clean shaven gold speculators.

This is true for some wallets, but e.g. multibit can directly query full nodes (like bitcoin core) without disclosing information about your addresses. Electrum depends on community run servers that run a full node and provide information for you, but you can manually select different servers.


Its possible to seperate a wallet into two systems. One kept offline that has the private keys and one kept online that only knows about the addresses. That way the online system knows the balance of your wallet and can create transactions. Without the private key however the transactions can not be signed and are not considered valid. You would create such a transaction on the online system, transfer it to the offline system for signing and once signed transfer it back to the online system for broadcasting it to the network. For that the offline system must not be synced at all, only the online system must be up to date.

These systems also exist for mobile phones, e.g. bither would be an example that offers an offline wallet for a phone. I dont know if it requires a central server though.

Thanks for your reply. As you probably realise, I'm in the early stages of learning about Bitcoin. I have assumed that using Bitcoin core would give me full control of my wallet, and anything else would involve 3rd parties, or hosting on machines out of my control. I hope that once I have downloaded the blockchain, I will be able to use this computer for transactions, and I will be able to move my coins onto a device without an internet connection. I was thinking about using an old mobile with an expired sim card, but that idea hasn't even made it onto the back of an envelope yet.

Newbies are most welcome here, its the scammers we dont like.


That sounds like its unnecessarily complicated. I would argue that the most mobile wallet you can have is a stand alone electrum[1] on an USB stick. You might run into issue if you use other computers for that though. Still a light client (like electrum, multibit, etc.) requires less data and would be synced within minutes. Consider you want to pay for something and would have to wait 20 minutes for the sync to finish, that does not sound like a usable system to me.

I suggest you look into other wallets[2] besides bitcoin core. Try a few to figure out which suits your needs the best or tell us more about what exactly you expect from your wallet, maybe we can give you a suggestion based on that.

[1] https://electrum.org/#download
[2] https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Hi  guys, I hope you will let a Bitcoin newbie join your forum, and I'd be grateful for you comments on some of my projects. At the moment, I'm researching the difficulties in using computers in a mobile lifestyle in England. I started off with a Toshiba Chromebook, which is great for email and normal domestic computing, especially with the addition of an SD card, but I don't like the idea of Google copying all the Bitcoin files. Chromebooks aren't too good for html or video editing either. So I bought an HP notebook running Windows 10, and I'm setting up a Bitcoin wallet on that. I'll look at the security issues when I've got a working wallet.

Updating the blockchain using public WiFi is quite an experience, and I'm glad that it seems to allow me to keep restarting the synchronisation. I've been at it for two days now, and I've still got 3 years and 38 weeks of data to load. MacDonalds and a couple of hotels seem to be happy to let me do this, but Sainsburys and the local library seem to bar access to the blockchain. I reckon MacD is the first to profit from my project - I seem to be drinking black coffee, hot chocolate, and eating egg wraps for most of the mornings.

I have three accounts with Nationwide, and that is great for mobile banking, but most of the others banks are not very convenient, or have security risks imho - I won't use contactless cards for example. Bitcoin seems to be one of the best alternatives, especially if one is concerned about the future of fiat currencies.