Topic: I think I got it (Read 1885 times)

Yes, bitinstant tries to be, well, almost instant (it doesn't always succeed though ). It advertises expected transfer time on the order of minutes. You can do an instant trade on Mt.Gox as well, and an instant transfer of bitcoins to your wallet. So the whole thing should take minutes.

The problem with this statement is that neither blockchain.info nor strongcoin.com seem to do that.

Wrong. Allowing PK import without waiting for confirmations on the emptying transaction carries the same risk as acceptance of any 0-confirmation transactions.

This doesn't make much sense either. The PK purchase is being advertised as instant. You don't need any foresight for that.

Okay.  So its safe to say tomorrow can I can goto CVS, use bitinstant to have money transferred to MtGox.  Then buy bitcoins on the market, then transfer them to my wallet in a fairly short amount of time (1 day)?

Thanks

That is entirely not necessary for bitcoin.  Certainly once a week is more than enough.  I use Time Machine and don't even have to think about it, but if you're doing manual backups of the wallet.dat file the standard client creates 100 private keys.  So if you backup right after starting up, setting up, and shutting down the client for the first time; the client can completely recover from a catastrophic event as long as you have not exceeded 100 transactions since last backup.  You can also force the client to create more, and have mine set to 2000; which makes for a huge wallet.dat file but my disk drive is fat.

The issue is that (generally speaking) online wallets keep the private keys on the server.  Even if the operator of the site (and all his employees) are trustworthy, if the server is hacked you could stand to lose everything that you have in the online wallet.  Online wallets certainly have their place, think of them as mini-Paypals, but would you keep your life's savings in Paypal even if you trusted them?  There is a precident as well, two major online wallet services have been hacked, and also Mt.Gox has been compromised once.  The more money that they concentrate, the tastier the hack target that they become.  What sum that you may have in your personally operated client wallet generally isn't worth the efforts, if they know that you have anything at all.  Mind you, some of them have learned their lesson, and have become relatively hard targets, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.  It is impossible to steal your bitcoins from your not running, not online and encrypted wallet.dat file.

That said, I don't entirely take my own advice here, as I have the majority of my funds in a BitcoinSpinner account attached to my android cell phone.  But the cavet there is that BitcoinSpinner uses a 'split wallet' design that keeps the actual private keys on my cell phone.  The risk for me, then, is the loss or destruction of my cell phone/memory card.

Really, the matter comes down to risk versus convience.  If your only dealing with a couple hundred dollars worth of bitcoins, and can afford to risk it, then an online wallet service is very fast and convient; like modern banking.  Often easier than Paypal.  But if you start to accumulate a very large value in that online account, perhaps a more secure 'savings account' is justified.  Either way, if something bad happens to the online service and you lose your shirt, don't blame bitcoin.

While it's true that Mt.Gox doesn't wait for confirms, the risk isn't with nor against Mt.Gox.  The risk of handling private keys is that the person you bought it from has retained a copy.  If you have the foresight to buy a private key in order to import it into Mt.Gox rapidly, then you have the foresight to simply send BTC to Mt.Gox at least an hour prior to a trade.  Mt.Gox imports private keys mostly so that people who have recieved a physical bitcoin can use it immediately with them, but that destroys the physical bitcoin.

It's also not a security vulnerability for Mt.Gox, it's a security concern for you.

Totally overkill, just tell windows task Schedualer to Copy(duplicate) the file once a week.
Done, Auto backup initiated

Make backups everyday!

I'm not sure about that. After reading their ads I'm under impression they say Mt.Gox does not wait for confirmations when importing private keys. Is that so? If so, then it is a security vulnerability in Mt.Gox, which they exploit to do faster transfers.

Why? Provided that you can export and backup the private keys, wouldn't an online wallet (like blockchain.info/wallet or strongcoin.com) be just as safe?

On MtGox you have to trade your dollars for bitcoins by placing a buy order.

You can place a Market order if you want it done instantly at whatever price people are currently asking.

Or you can place a limit order (by not ticking the "Market order" checkbox) where you specify the worst price you are prepared to buy at, but if you do that then you have the risk of nobody ever selling at that price.

you can also buy from coinbase.com directly from a US bank account.

Cool thanks for the heads up.  I almost went though a couple hundred that could have got me scammed.
Only going to go with trusted methods and sites now.

Was thinking of going through Bit Instant.... from CVS to MtGox.  Then MtGox-->blockchain.info wallet.  Hows that sound?  That would take about a day for everything for the money to be in blockchain.info correct?  I need to buy something soon so this is probably the fastest way I think.

Also Moon, I played TF2 awhile back.  If you want I have some items you can have for free for helping me out I never play anymore.  I think a couple strange things like the knife and ambassador, and like 4-5 refined metals and some other things that you might want, let me know.

Edit...  Okay.  I figured it all out I'm pretty sure and going to do it tommrow.

-Goto BitInstant.  Pay from CVS (In cash) to MtGox account that I created today.

This is where I get confused.  Am I supposed to convert that fund that I got now in MtGox to bitcoins?  Or does it automatically do that for me.

-From MtGox withdraw and send to blockchain.info ewallet by entering my wallet address.

Thank you!

Yeah, there is no legitimate reason to sell private keys online and a great many risks in trusting someone else to create your keys for you.  Those physical bitcoins are really just metal tokens with a hidden private key, so in person you have to trade private keys & you have to trust that the guys who makes those physical bitcoins is honest; but there is no reason to do something similar online. 

I don't know why they are selling keys instead of sending bitcoins. Looks a little suspicious. In case they are legitimate, you can claim private keys directly with blockchain.info web client, no need to use Mt.Gox for that. Just go to "Import/Export", "Import Private Key". Make sure to empty (sweep) the private key though so that the person who gave you the private key can't take the money.

Cool thanks guys for everything.  This is what I'm thinking though, can you tell me if this could work?  If not I'll just wait for bit instant to be up again!

Could I buy Bit coin keys from


Lets just say I buy 5 private bitcoin keys from
https://bitcoinkeys.wildapricot.org/Products

Transfer those private keys to Mt.Gox to have a total of 5 bitcoins in my Mt Gox account.

Then transfer those to my blockchain.info wallet?  Will that work fairly quick?  Or does Mt. Gox take awhile?  I just made an account on there and it seems simple enough?


Thanks again guys for all your help, really helpful.

Yes that is fine to use.  They don't keep your unencrypted private keys on their server.