Topic: Nothing showing up in blockchain.info or blockexplorer.com? (Read 739 times)

You don't need to use both Electrum and Bitaddress in conjunction. When you first ran Electrum it will randomly generate a 12 word seed that will be used to generate all the future addresses of your wallet (hence it is a deterministic wallet) - password protect this wallet. Then from there look at the tabs at the top and find the one stating 'Master Public Key'. Copy the text string onto notepad and bring that to your main online computer. From here begin your fresh installation and select "Create a watching-only version of existing wallet", you will then be prompted to enter your "Master Public Key".

The trade off with Electrum (at the moment at least) is that you cannot 'watch' imported addresses only ones created via your original seed. Nonetheless, unless your creating vanity addresses it shouldn't matter - an offline Electrum client will create keys just as safe as bitaddress.

Refer to here for more info: https://electrum.org/tutorials.html

Ok I installed Electrum portable on a USB stick, I have a balance on an address that i made offline with the bitaddress.org webpage and has never been imported anywhere.
Now I want to import the public key for that address as a watch-only but I can't figure out how to do it. I can only see options to import files and private keys.

Hm, Maybe I should post this in technical support.

Electrum offers you to do the same - you need to copy over the Master Public Key from your offline client to your online one.

@OP: There is no difference - the website is updated with the newest version (although it would be better to download it from github so you can verify that it hasn't been altered).

This depends on the wallet. They have to be able to "watch" addresses. Afaik bitcoin core does not support this yet. I know armory and blockchain do.



Probably none. But the version on github might be a different version as the one online.

Oh....just curious...what's the difference if you download bitaddress.org from github or if you just navigate to the bitaddress.org webpage in your browser and save the page, then use it offline?

Yes, they usually have several addresses where you can deposit funds and severall others where they store your coins (usually offline) savely. While you only do transactions within the same exchange there is no need to use the blockchain, it would just be a waste in fees and blockchain space.

Think about it like this: Lets say banks need to transfer money to other banks by transporting physical gold/fiat from Bank A to B. This would be the equivalent of you send money to me. You are your own bitcoin bank, I am my own bitcoin bank. The transportation is done via the blockchain and the p2p network.
Now, bank A is not a single person, but has 3 customers. It has a nice spreadsheet where it writes down which customer has howmuch money. If customer 1 wants to send money to customer 2 the bank can just change the spreadsheet. Sending physical gold/fiat from A to A makes no sense. Same with big bitcoin exchanges / casinos / etc. they store the coins somewhere safe and handle all internal transactions via an internal database. Only when the coins leave the company they make a public transaction on the blockchain.


Yes the coins would be real and they would be added to the blockchain, because the blockchain stores all the transactions. If you send coins somewhere you do this via the blockchain and you have to publicly announce where you send the coins. So you cant keep your public address secret when you want to send coins there. Importing an address (e.g. the public key) is no problem. Importing a private key (thats the one that allows you to spend the coins) can be a risk. This however depends on where you import the private key and how you do this. The worst way I can imagine atm is importing a private key into an online wallet service via an unencrypted connection. If you however do this locally, use encryption right after importing the priv. key and use it only to sweep the address, you should be fine. Assuming the computer you use is not compromised.

Correct - while they are listed in Cex's own records those records are not officially recognised by the network so until you withdraw to an address you will never see them. I would suggest you create a wallet using actual software (ie Electrum/Multibit/Qt) rather than web wallets - securing web wallets can be a pain. If you're using bitaddress.org download a copy from GitHub and use it offline to create your addresses and then import them into a client. If I were to recommend one it would be Electrum - you get a lot of security and features (offline tx signing comes to mind) without having to download the whole blockchain.

The balance won't be sent out until you request a withdrawal to a specified address. Until then Cex records how much you have and has funds stored in its hot and cold wallets respectively. When you request a payment they will then send it from there - but there is no value in having your Bitcoin is a random address until then for them. Much easier to secure and maintain if you have less things to worry about.

I have a very small balance of bitcoin in c-cex online address, its a very small amount but it is showing up.
However, if I search the address in blockchain.info or blockexplorer.com, it says that the address has never been used, balance is zero.
Its been about 3 days already since that small amount of bitcoin was sent, shouldn't the balance have shown up on blockchain and blockexplorer by now?