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Topic: Electrum Question (Read 222 times)

copper member
Activity: 2338
Merit: 4543
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March 24, 2020, 02:28:15 PM
#5
it is a pretty basic "how does bitcoin work" question.

your wallet only needs to store your "keys" and nothing else. everything else is being stored publicly on the blockchain that is shared between peers on the bitcoin P2P network. in other words when someone sends you bitcoins, they aren't really sending "you" bitcoins. they are submitting the transaction to the public blockchain. and your "coins" (which are transaction outputs) are stored on that blockchain.
to spend those coins you have to provide a digital signature with your keys locally and then publish that signature so that you can move those "coins" and update the public ledger aka blockchain.

It's amazing that so many people still think of currency as a physical item, and can't quite grasp the notion that it's merely a digital representation of wealth.  This isn't limited to cryptocurrency.  Even USD is mostly digital these days.  Conservative estimates suggest that physical dollars are used for about 26% of all USD transactions.  Other estimates suggest that only 8% of the worlds wealth exists as actual physical notes and coins.  The rest exists only in digital form.

@OP, think of it this way; your bitcoin isn't actually in your wallet.  Regardless of what wallet software you use, the bitcoin is "stored" in the public blockchain.  Your wallet contains private keys which act as "passwords" that allow you to move the bitcoin from one address to another.  Once a transaction has been signed by a private key, the rest is handled by nodes and miners, and the public blockchain is modified to reflect the transaction.
legendary
Activity: 2730
Merit: 7065
March 24, 2020, 02:10:41 PM
#4
It does not have to be open. As long as you gave the sender an address that is part of your wallet you will receive coins on it as soon as the transaction is confirmed. You don't even have to open Electrum to check if the transaction has gone through or not. For that you can use a blockchain explorer like https://blockchair.com/ or https://blockstream.info/. Enter your address in one of those and it will show you all transactions related to that address.
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 10611
March 22, 2020, 11:35:13 PM
#3
it is a pretty basic "how does bitcoin work" question.

your wallet only needs to store your "keys" and nothing else. everything else is being stored publicly on the blockchain that is shared between peers on the bitcoin P2P network. in other words when someone sends you bitcoins, they aren't really sending "you" bitcoins. they are submitting the transaction to the public blockchain. and your "coins" (which are transaction outputs) are stored on that blockchain.
to spend those coins you have to provide a digital signature with your keys locally and then publish that signature so that you can move those "coins" and update the public ledger aka blockchain.
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 3139
March 22, 2020, 07:46:43 PM
#2
Am I able to receive BTC in my wallet even when the software is not open on my pc?  Or does it have to be open?

It doesn't matter if it's Electrum or any other wallet - you don't have to have your wallet opened in order to receive coins. Your wallet will take a moment after launch to synchronise with the network and add missing incoming/outgoing transactions.
jr. member
Activity: 63
Merit: 1
March 22, 2020, 07:40:32 PM
#1
Am I able to receive BTC in my wallet even when the software is not open on my pc?  Or does it have to be open?
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