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Topic: bitcoin-qt - shouldn't it merge pools when restoring backups? (Read 384 times)

newbie
Activity: 23
Merit: 0
According to this:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet

"Since the backup does not have the private keys necessary for authorizing spends of these coins, restoring from the old backup will cause you to lose Bitcoins."

The backup restore operation is inherently UNSAFE!
Is that stupid thing to do? Specially if they don't offer any alternative.

Why would you EVER "want to forget" keys?

The way I see it is:
1) When I backup the tool should create a copy of all keys know to that moment. (what it does now)

2) When I restore the tool really MERGES keys on the current wallet and on the backups wallet. If i do it on an uncorrupted newer version of my same wallet this will be a no-op. Restore=merge, it should JOIN FUNDs without transactions, this merge wallets operation is USEFUL and SAFE while restore is DANGEROUS and should be avoided most times.

3) If you really want to "restore" the tool should warn the user that keys maybe lost from the resulting wallet, and ANYWAY make a backup of the previous wallet state to a separate file BEFORE replacing any keys and letting the user know that file was craeated and can be used if there is a need.

I don't get it... what am I missing here?
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