Is calling it a "wallet" the wrong thing?

[theGECK]

From the beginning of me looking at bitcoin, to the comments that I've heard people over and over talk about, I've wondered about why we call the file that keeps your keypairs "wallet.dat". A wallet is something you put money into, but your money is not stored there, and so people ask about synchronizing their wallets. Many people end up confused by having to diassociate the definition of "wallet" from what they've believed all their life, to the new definition. I've done it myself, instead of realizing that it's more like a key to Fort Knox.

The blockchain contains all of the money. Everything that exists is stored there. Your "wallet.dat" key gives you access to the amount of BTC that is available to it. No money is stored in the "wallet", it just exists to let you look at the little money you own. In that regard, it's more like a silver/gold certificate, or a stock, than a wallet.

Even now, I'm not sure what a good, one-word summary of this concept is. But maybe we would have less confusion about how to "synchronize clients/wallets" if we stopped calling that file the "wallet" and called it something else. Perhaps "deed", or "voucher", or "credentials"? I like credentials, because it is easier to say "just apply your credentials to the Bitcoin program, and it will show you your balance". Credentials already has the connotation of something that you carry to get access to it, so then if you "lose your credentials" you lose access to the money that you had access to.

What are other's thoughts on this? I just know that in my short 1.5 months around this, I've seen lots and lots of people asking about their wallet file, and how it stores money. When many people are confused, I've learned that frequently the easiest thing to do is to change the terminology.

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[Meni Rosenfeld]

Keychain?

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

From the beginning of me looking at bitcoin, to the comments that I've heard people over and over talk about, I've wondered about why we call the file that keeps your keypairs "wallet.dat". A wallet is something you put money into, but your money is not stored there, and so people ask about synchronizing their wallets. Many people end up confused by having to diassociate the definition of "wallet" from what they've believed all their life, to the new definition. I've done it myself, instead of realizing that it's more like a key to Fort Knox.

The blockchain contains all of the money. Everything that exists is stored there. Your "wallet.dat" key gives you access to the amount of BTC that is available to it. No money is stored in the "wallet", it just exists to let you look at the little money you own. In that regard, it's more like a silver/gold certificate, or a stock, than a wallet.

Even now, I'm not sure what a good, one-word summary of this concept is. But maybe we would have less confusion about how to "synchronize clients/wallets" if we stopped calling that file the "wallet" and called it something else. Perhaps "deed", or "voucher", or "credentials"? I like credentials, because it is easier to say "just apply your credentials to the Bitcoin program, and it will show you your balance". Credentials already has the connotation of something that you carry to get access to it, so then if you "lose your credentials" you lose access to the money that you had access to.

What are other's thoughts on this? I just know that in my short 1.5 months around this, I've seen lots and lots of people asking about their wallet file, and how it stores money. When many people are confused, I've learned that frequently the easiest thing to do is to change the terminology.

I think wallet fits. If you lose your wallet you lose everything in it. Also btc is essentially cash and you put that in your wallet.

I agree that technically credentials or something else sounds better but I personally like wallet and you are sort of storing your btc in it.

Edit: keychain makes sense too, so does making a copy of your keychain. Also it's hard to shake the term wallet when it's what we've been hearing constantly.

[theGECK]

Keychain?

So, the keychain gets you access to the block chain. It makes my teeth set on edge for some reason, but it makes a lot of sense. You carry your keychain around, which lets you see how much money you have.

Also, stonetz, you actually don't put your BTC in your wallet.dat. That's what I think ends up confusing so many people. I (and they) thought that your bitcoins actually resided in your wallet. So, you then have to think about carrying your wallet from place to place, keeping it synchronized between devices, how to make sure when you make a transaction on your phone it works with your computer, when none of that actually matters. The only thing is making sure that you keep your keychain safe in your belt, or pocket, or dropbox, or wherever. And if you add some keys to your mobile's keychain, then you just have to make sure those keys are on your computer's keychain as well.

Keychain fits really well, especially since we are using Public Key for them, right?

[ffe]

Keychain?

I like this.

[SteveB]

How about masterkey?

[gohan]

I think the worst analogy of the Bitcoin system is the "bitcoin" part. It leads to all sorts of misunderstandings, concerns about divisibility being the most common one. It took me some time to understand that there is nothing analogous to coins in the system and bitcoins are actually historical transactions. However, the user never has to know how it works, so it's OK.

Compared to that, "wallet" is actually a pretty good one, and I think it's the reason why the coin analogy was appropriate in the first place. You have your cash stored in your wallet, when you spend it it's gone, when you lose your wallet it's gone. It's harder even to grasp, for the non-technical user, that there aren't actual bitcoins stored there. If you get rid of the wallet analogy, you would have to change nomenclature altogether, starting with "bitcoin".

EDIT: By the way, synchronizing wallets might not ever be an easy/useful thing to do. Being able to use the same key simultaneously from different nodes is a bad idea. You would probably want to transfer your wallet, or split the money in it, which are still good analogies.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

I think the worst analogy of the Bitcoin system is the "bitcoin" part. It leads to all sorts of misunderstandings, concerns about divisibility being the most common one. It took me some time to understand that there is nothing analogous to coins in the system and bitcoins are actually historical transactions. However, the user never has to know how it works, so it's OK.

Compared to that, "wallet" is actually a pretty good one, an I think it's the reason why the coin analogy was appropriate in the first place. You have your cash stored in your wallet, when you spend it it's gone, when you lose your wallet it's gone. It's harder even to grasp, for the non-technical user, that there aren't actual bitcoins stored there. If you get rid of the wallet analogy, you would have to change nomenclature altogether, starting with "bitcoin".

Let's call it "Bitliquid". Since liquid is uncountable, we'll measure it in liters, and talk about sending 21.5 liters of bitliquid. Divisibility problem solved.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Geck, I understand it's not actually in there, why I said "sort of"
It's kind of funny to think about it like this "they're not in there....but if you lose the wallet you lose the coins"
I get why, I know you get it and everyone that's posting in this thread so far gets it but it just seems strange to say and I'm sure it's mind blowing to most if they try to understand.

Because of that I still think bit coins are  "sort of" but not really in the wallet.


I like the idea of keychain a lot and master key but they sound similar to things that we already have.
I think wallet is pretty unique among bitcoin terms. Maybe someone will come up with something that makes everyone say AH and agree on.

[compro01]

Let's call it "Bitliquid". Since liquid is uncountable, we'll measure it in liters, and talk about sending 21.5 liters of bitliquid. Divisibility problem solved.

i like this metaphor, though liquid is perfectly countable, on the level of sub-atomic particles (this is tricky in the real world, but since we're using fictional particles, it works), which we can define as 0.00000001 BTC.  and if we consider 1 BTC as a litre, we can work from that using standard prefixes.  0.001 is a millilitre and so on.

we could always call it latinum. =)

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

The word "liquid" is an uncountable noun but you can turn it in to countable nouns easily enough like liter of water, drop of blood, gallon of piss, rain puddle etc etc.

[marcus_of_augustus]

It is something like a hybrid between tally sticks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_stick (particularly analogous is the split tally system of medieval UK) safe deposit box and keychain.

The P2P bitcoin network has the record of the tallies, contained in safe deposit boxes that are held throughout the network in the block data, and the keychain in your wallet.dat has the keys to access those safe deposit boxes where your tally is kept.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

We could just call it a "key file"

That's not very exciting but to me it makes it pretty clear what it is.
Back up your key file!

I don't think there would be much confusion about it.

[Nefario]

Purse?

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Purse?

That's kind of the opposite of the cool James Bond / Jack Bauer. What if we call it "Briefcase handcuffed to your wrist"

[theGECK]

Key file is probably the best, since "keychain" is too similar to "block chain". Like you said, not catchy, but it gets the point across.

[barbarousrelic]

"Safe key"  as in a key that opens the safe.

[theGECK]

How does the block chain download? Is it into one file? Could we call that file the "safe"?

[theymos]

How does the block chain download? Is it into one file? Could we call that file the "safe"?

Then people will want to back up the block chain, which is unnecessary.

[theGECK]

How does the block chain download? Is it into one file? Could we call that file the "safe"?

Then people will want to back up the block chain, which is unnecessary.

+1, you're right.