Im running Bitcoin Core and I had all my money there when the split happened so I have all my BTC also on the BCash chain.
I just want to be safe than sorry. This is what I have on mind:
1) Download Bitcoin Cash client (from
www.bitcoincash.org) in another computer to guarantee my Bitcoin Core install stays clean.
2) Copy my wallet.dat and the blockchain files on the Bitcoin Cash client
3) Wait for it to validate
4) Once it's done (I guess this will take a couple of hours... maybe a day?) I should have the same amount of BTC I have showing up as BCH
5) This is the step im not sure about. Can I send my coins safely to an exchange from there?
Also, how do I maintain privacy? The exchanges I've used, generate the same receiving address for deposits, so my entire wallet would be linked to the same address...
How can I deposit all of my BTC (which consist of 100's of transactions) into the exchange without lossing privacy?
This is something I hate about bitcoin. You have to be so careful. I wish I could click "send" and forget about it. Having to keep track of inputs and outputs its a massive time waster and a headacher maker.
Anyway, please help me do this right.
Step one should be to transfer your existing Bitcoin to another new wallet first before importing your private keys into a BCH wallet. The risk is a compromised BCH wallet that would steal your existing Bitcoin. You can claim your BCH from the same keys that held a BTC balance at the time of the fork, even though now the Bitcoin has been transferred somewhere else.
As far as the privacy issue, unless you have a significant amount of Bitcoin I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you do have a large amount, then yes I would take measures to try and send the amounts to as many different addresses as much as possible. I know Kraken and Coinbase allow you to generate new addresses, I am not sure about other exchanges.
I should also add that when you are done transferring all of your BTC and BCH out of your existing wallet, consider all those keys as being compromised. I would backup a copy of the wallet dat somewhere in case you would accidentally send to an old address in the future, but afterward would wipe that machine and reinstall a new bitcoin wallet and generate new keys to use to move you money back into. A hardware wallet would work as well, the takeaway is you do not want to reuse any of those private keys. And you have already identified the need to keep your BCH wallet on a separate machine from your Bitcoin Core wallet, which I think is prudent.
You can never be too secure is my belief. A bit of inconvenience is well worth it if it means protecting your money