Topic: Receiving coin while unsynchronized ? (Read 1458 times)

Just to add more informations to what was mentioned before
Here is a very simplified explanation on how transactions works :

When you make a transaction, the transaction it self has 3 components and Input ( the sender address), amount of of coins and output (receiver address) . (notice how there is no mention of coins them selfs, because they don't exist, the thing that exist in the bitcoin network are actually the transactions data )
the transaction data or record, are registered in the blockchain and each transaction is tied to private keys that are related to the previous input and output, so when a transaction is made and confirmed by the network which is processing the blockchain in this case you've received the coins on your address 

your wallet being in sync or not has nothing to do with the transaction it self, The synching of the wallet is related blockchain, to receive the missing transaction in the network that the wallet missed when it was offline, hence during the synching when it reaches the transaction it self you'll see the bitcoins appears and the usual bubble message "you've received xxx amount of XXXcoins"

Obviously there are more things that makes the bitcoin protocol what it is, Just google it and you'll find plenty of information once you are familiar with the basics

Is the transaction included in that specific block your wallet has downloaded and verified? If your transaction is included in the block your wallet have verified, the transaction and balance would automatically appear. I am not 100% sure about this.

Well I'm pretty positive I've gotten notice of coins that were sent to my wallet while the syncing process is taking place.  I'm interested what others have noticed, I just assumed the wallet would update as it sorted threw the update.

Think about your wallet.dat in cold storage. You send coins, but your wallet is never syncing the blockchain. Just gotta keep an eye on the address and see that the transactions confirm!

You have to be fully synhronised to see that transaction in wavet. But in blockchain info it is seen right after sent.

Exactly what I'm thinking and have noticed in the past.  the coins my be in the wallet but until your wall is synced it won't register in your wallet.  At some point during the syncing process it will show up but not until the wallet is informed the coins were received which it does via syncing.

The only issue with this is that you will likely not receive notification that you have received the coins until your wallet synchronizes up to the point that the TX that sent you the coins was confirmed by the network.

AFAIK most wallets will not allow you to spend any coins if it is not synchronized as it doesn't have an accurate picture of your unspent inputs.

Dont worry about any of this

I've received payments in unsynchronized wallets without a problem. While I was helping the Marscoin Foundation test new wallets, we'd send transactions back and forth while still figuring out why things weren't syncing up. (The wallets work fine now, BTW).

They have syncronization too, but it is from seconds to minutes. Only that requires no confirmation are online wallets

It's not a problem, but it will not appear until the previous transaction is finished.

Only problem is that you won't see your coins until the sync reaches the transaction date, therefore won't be able to spend them, but you can see them on any block explorer, like blockchain.info.

Actually, they have to synchronize as well, at least to a certain extent. MultiBit with a lot of wallets or transactions over a big amount of time also takes some time! But it's true that the client doesn't need to be online. In fact, the wallet may just be a paperwallet, since Bitcoin can be sent to any address that is 'a valid Bitcoin address', it doesn't matter if someone possesses a private key for the address (owns the wallet)

Try to use Armory, Electrum or Multibit as bitcoin wallets. With them you don't have to wait for the sync process, just start the program and it will work without any waiting.

What if you send coins without having your wallet synced?
Will the transaction be accepted?

You will get a notification almost immediately.

If you dont want to wait for your wallet to synch I recommend blockchain.info or a lite client like electrum that doesnt download the blockchain. You'll have your coins in seconds then.

All the transactions are registered in the blockchain, when you sync the wallet you are just looking at what happened in the meantime.

Thank you very much for fast reply

Yeah it is not an problem obviously. If that were the case it would be ridiculous.
So: user A sends user B (wallet unsynced) 1 BTC.
User B syncs his wallet and then the coins show up.
You could always check the address on https://blockchain.info/ to see if your coins have arrived.