Cold Storage Wallets | Bitcointalksearch.org

hankhill69

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Quote from: kellrobinson on December 28, 2013, 08:52:03 AM

Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 07:06:30 PM

Very stupid question but doesnt creating double wallets also mean your creating duplicates of your coins? or are the coins assigned values 1-21million like a bank note has serial numbers.

thank you

The bitcoins are not in your wallet. They are on the blockchain, which is stored on thousands of computers worldwide (miners). Your wallet contains the information (keys) you need to go on the blockchain and get those coins back.

Perfectly made sense, thank you very much.

kellrobinson

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Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 07:06:30 PM

Very stupid question but doesnt creating double wallets also mean your creating duplicates of your coins? or are the coins assigned values 1-21million like a bank note has serial numbers.

thank you

The bitcoins are not in your wallet. They are on the blockchain, which is stored on thousands of computers worldwide (miners). Your wallet contains the information (keys) you need to go on the blockchain and get those coins back.

bitpop

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Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 07:06:30 PM

Very stupid question but doesnt creating double wallets also mean your creating duplicates of your coins? or are the coins assigned values 1-21million like a bank note has serial numbers.

thank you

Please don't tell anyone

t1000

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Quote from: vapourminer on December 27, 2013, 06:58:46 AM

wallets add new addresses every so often. make sure you backup the working wallet as time goes on, as you may find you old backup wont have currently used addresses in it.

There is some leeway to this. Bitcoin full node client wallets have a keypool. Default is 100 keys. This means it has the next 100 addresses already generated.

t1000

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Quote from: Andaloons on December 27, 2013, 06:31:55 AM

There is an important lesson here. Backing up to obsolete hardware is pretty secure, but possibly too secure. What if your only floppy drive fails? Where would you buy another one? What if USB sticks become obsolete? Don't backup your wallets on some kind of technology and forget about it. Offline printed paper wallets are the best cold storage way to go. Cool

I am starting to understand why John Titor came back for an IBM 5100. He/his government must have put their backup on tape. The loss of access to the bitcoin reserve must have led to civil war.

vapourminer

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what is this "brake pedal" you speak of?

wallets add new addresses every so often. make sure you backup the working wallet as time goes on, as you may find you old backup wont have currently used addresses in it.

theecoinomist

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Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 08:36:56 PM

ok awesome so in your opinion what is the best way I should approach my situation? i got a 500gb hard drive, put .dat file on it, make a copy of the .dat file and put it on a usb? and then keep taking that file to multiple locations...sound about right?

Wuala.com or Mega with encrypted version as well

Andaloons

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There is an important lesson here. Backing up to obsolete hardware is pretty secure, but possibly too secure. What if your only floppy drive fails? Where would you buy another one? What if USB sticks become obsolete? Don't backup your wallets on some kind of technology and forget about it. Offline printed paper wallets are the best cold storage way to go. Cool

hankhill69

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Quote from: btcusr on December 26, 2013, 09:58:58 PM

Backup to a floppy.

It would be a challenge in itself to find a floppy drive at this point in time.

t1000

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Quote from: btcusr on December 26, 2013, 09:58:58 PM

Backup to a floppy.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Grin

btcusr

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@_vjy

Backup to a floppy.

Voodah

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Quote from: IsaacGoldbourne on December 26, 2013, 08:44:23 PM

Quote from: Voodah on December 26, 2013, 01:55:32 PM

Do it on a SSD drive.

Why would you use an SSD? It doesn't need the speed increase for cold storage.

I'd personally create a truecrypt container and upload it to 30 cloud storage services if its for LONG term

A regular HDD is much more fragile than an SSD.

That's all I meant.

t1000

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Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 08:36:56 PM

ok awesome so in your opinion what is the best way I should approach my situation? i got a 500gb hard drive, put .dat file on it, make a copy of the .dat file and put it on a usb? and then keep taking that file to multiple locations...sound about right?

If you are keeping these wallets as backups, it should be fine.

If you are looking to store your coins offline, securely, for long periods of time, I recommend you use paper wallet. Most digital storage mediums degrade over time. USB sticks have a data retention period of 10 years, typically. Hard drives in cold storage for extended periods of time may fail to start (motor failure).

IsaacGoldbourne

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Quote from: Voodah on December 26, 2013, 01:55:32 PM

Do it on a SSD drive.

Why would you use an SSD? It doesn't need the speed increase for cold storage.

I'd personally create a truecrypt container and upload it to 30 cloud storage services if its for LONG term

hankhill69

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ok awesome so in your opinion what is the best way I should approach my situation? i got a 500gb hard drive, put .dat file on it, make a copy of the .dat file and put it on a usb? and then keep taking that file to multiple locations...sound about right?

nastybit

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You can also upload the wallet in the cloud, like dropbox or similar but make sure you use a very strong password.
Please also note that if someone ever get your wallet.dat without password he will be able to spend, he just need access to 1 copy, and you will not be able to do anything.
Best Luck :-)

kik1977

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Wherever I may roam

Quote from: t1000 on December 26, 2013, 07:17:38 PM

Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 07:06:30 PM

Very stupid question but doesnt creating double wallets also mean your creating duplicates of your coins? or are the coins assigned values 1-21million like a bank note has serial numbers.

thank you

No. Bitcoins are not serial numbered.

A bitcoin is not a unit really, but rather a quantity.

Bitcoins are infinitely divisible, though for now you can consider a satoshi as the smallest unit.

There are 100 million satoshis in 1 bitcoin.

All you bitcoins are actually on the block chain. Your wallet only contains the references to your coins and the keys that let you to spend them.

So, you can make as many copies of your wallet as you want. Your bitcoins will not be duplicated.

Exactly, in your wallet you just hold the proof you're the owner of that quantity of bitcoins and the "password" to use them. In fact what you have is a public/private key pair.

hankhill69

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Quote from: RawDog on December 26, 2013, 07:31:11 PM

Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 07:06:30 PM

Very stupid question but doesnt creating double wallets also mean your creating duplicates of your coins? or are the coins assigned values 1-21million like a bank note has serial numbers.

I made a lot of money this way. I just keep making copies of bitcoins and selling them to you idiots. Bitcoin is nothing but air. Its stupid!!

absolutely genius my goodness

RawDog

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Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 07:06:30 PM

Very stupid question but doesnt creating double wallets also mean your creating duplicates of your coins? or are the coins assigned values 1-21million like a bank note has serial numbers.

I made a lot of money this way. I just keep making copies of bitcoins and selling them to you idiots. Bitcoin is nothing but air. Its stupid!!

t1000

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Activity: 182

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Quote from: hankhill69 on December 26, 2013, 07:06:30 PM

Very stupid question but doesnt creating double wallets also mean your creating duplicates of your coins? or are the coins assigned values 1-21million like a bank note has serial numbers.

thank you

No. Bitcoins are not serial numbered.

A bitcoin is not a unit really, but rather a quantity.

Bitcoins are infinitely divisible, though for now you can consider a satoshi as the smallest unit.

There are 100 million satoshis in 1 bitcoin.

All you bitcoins are actually on the block chain. Your wallet only contains the references to your coins and the keys that let you to spend them.

So, you can make as many copies of your wallet as you want. Your bitcoins will not be duplicated.

Topic: Cold Storage Wallets (Read 2603 times)