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Topic: Multiple wallets mathematically more prone to loss? - page 2. (Read 1750 times)

legendary
Activity: 4466
Merit: 3391
Let's pretend that each wallet has a 50% chance of loss (and also make a bunch simplifying assumptions).

If you have one wallet then you have a 50% chance of losing at least some coins and a 50% chance of losing all coins.
If you have two wallets then you have a 75% chance of losing at least some coins, but only a 25% chance of losing all coins.

So with multiple wallets,, you chances of losing some coins increases, but the chances of losing all coins decreases.
That only goes for wallets without a backup tho. If you have 4 wallets with 1/4 coins in each wallet and one is corrupted, you lose 1/4 of your coins.
If you have one wallet saved on 4 different cards and one goes corrupt, you still have 100% of your coins.
So as long as you have a good number of backups, everything is fine.

That is an excellent point. A backup reduces your risk.
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1012
Failed SDHC card doesn't exist ...  Roll Eyes it's use a "removal SDHC" in a poor card reader that's it destroy the SD card.
Use ... the cable provide with the camera  Grin

I use a compact flash in a netbook (before the SSD age) to store and use a Windows XP ... since 3 years.
Since i buy SD card and have crashed all my card reader, not a single card haven't been destroy.
legendary
Activity: 1734
Merit: 1015
Let's pretend that each wallet has a 50% chance of loss (and also make a bunch simplifying assumptions).

If you have one wallet then you have a 50% chance of losing at least some coins and a 50% chance of losing all coins.
If you have two wallets then you have a 75% chance of losing at least some coins, but only a 25% chance of losing all coins.

So with multiple wallets,, you chances of losing some coins increases, but the chances of losing all coins decreases.

That only goes for wallets without a backup tho. If you have 4 wallets with 1/4 coins in each wallet and one is corrupted, you lose 1/4 of your coins.

If you have one wallet saved on 4 different cards and one goes corrupt, you still have 100% of your coins.

So as long as you have a good number of backups, everything is fine.
member
Activity: 70
Merit: 10
TheSlimShady
Even with a thousand wallets you are still pretty safe.
They are safe until they dont store their private keys in their email ids, but they can be even unsafe in the cold storage(i remember how much my friend cried when the hard disk in which he had 15BTC got corrupt).
sr. member
Activity: 359
Merit: 250
Even with a thousand wallets you are still pretty safe.
member
Activity: 70
Merit: 10
TheSlimShady
there is just a simple way to save your btc, just keep it in a cold storage(away from kids) and burn the printed private keys. then it wont matter on how many wallets you make, ur btc will always be safe.
legendary
Activity: 4466
Merit: 3391
Let's pretend that each wallet has a 50% chance of loss (and also make a bunch simplifying assumptions).

If you have one wallet then you have a 50% chance of losing at least some coins and a 50% chance of losing all coins.
If you have two wallets then you have a 75% chance of losing at least some coins, but only a 25% chance of losing all coins.

So with multiple wallets,, you chances of losing some coins increases, but the chances of losing all coins decreases.
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1001
This is the land of wolves now & you're not a wolf
By increasing your number of wallets you are obviously increasing the liklihood that you could lose some coins. But on the same token, you are dramatically decreasing the chances that you would lose them all.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
You increase the odds of having a single card fail by using more than one. The likelihood of more than one failing is infinitely lower than failure of multiple cards.
cp1
hero member
Activity: 616
Merit: 500
Stop using branwallets
You are 4x as likely to lose 1/4 of the wedding photos if you use 4 SD cards.  But you're 10000000x more likely to not get paid if you lose 100% of the wedding photos by using only 1 SD card.

Brain wallets are easily guessable, you should move your funds into something else immediately.
hero member
Activity: 616
Merit: 500
think it depends on the physical media they are, not the wallet type, unless they have some kind of software bug that in some way could corrupt your dat file, what I think is really unlikely.

the good news is that you can buy many backup medias and save all your wallets privates keys in every one of the medias, so decreasing the overall failure prob.
full member
Activity: 126
Merit: 100
Being a photographer, many pros suggested not shooting a wedding on just one SDHC card.  Such as shooting at a wedding, shoot on multiple cards just in case one card goes corrupt.  But some internet mathematician pointed out that it's more mathematically safe to shoot on one SDHC card.  The low failure rate is such, that you increase your possible failure rate with each additional card (Ie.  Using 4 8gb cards in place of 1 32gb card increases the odds of a card failure by 4x).

Would this apply to wallets?   I looked up risk probability on Google but couldn't figure it out.

Right now, the bulk of my funds are stored in (1) Electrum and (2) a brain wallet that never touched the Internet.  I also use blockchain.info (3) & (4) as hot wallets for spending.  I also use Mycelium, Multibit and Dark Wallet but those are just intermediaries with no money ever held there.  Personally, I feel most safest with electrum, and maybe the cold storage brain wallet.  A little afraid though that some future quantum computer could some day figure out the random seeds on Electrum and the Brain Wallet.
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