Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Armory => Topic started by: opentoe on May 03, 2013, 03:42:07 AM



Title: Question about wallet(s)
Post by: opentoe on May 03, 2013, 03:42:07 AM
I created a VM just for Armory with Windows 7 so I could get it working with the latest version. I still have access to my original wallet file. I copied my wallet file to my new VM, but have yet to  import anything. I did make a transaction AFTER I copied my wallet and did add another receive address. Will that transaction and new receive address show up when I import the wallet?


Title: Re: Question about wallet(s)
Post by: justusranvier on May 03, 2013, 03:48:30 AM
I created a VM just for Armory with Windows 7 so I could get it working with the latest version. I still have access to my original wallet file. I copied my wallet file to my new VM, but have yet to  import anything. I did make a transaction AFTER I copied my wallet and did add another receive address. Will that transaction and new receive address show up when I import the wallet?

Armory wallets are deterministic. If you make multiple copies of a deterministic wallet every copy will generate the exact same sequence of addresses.

The only way they would get out of sync is if you did something unusual like manually import a private key that was generated in another program. Generating a new address by clicking "Receive Bitcoins" is fine. All the other copies of that wallet will see the funds sent to that address.


Title: Re: Question about wallet(s)
Post by: opentoe on May 03, 2013, 04:00:10 AM
I created a VM just for Armory with Windows 7 so I could get it working with the latest version. I still have access to my original wallet file. I copied my wallet file to my new VM, but have yet to  import anything. I did make a transaction AFTER I copied my wallet and did add another receive address. Will that transaction and new receive address show up when I import the wallet?

Armory wallets are deterministic. If you make multiple copies of a deterministic wallet every copy will generate the exact same sequence of addresses.

The only way they would get out of sync is if you did something unusual like manually import a private key that was generated in another program. Generating a new address by clicking "Receive Bitcoins" is fine. All the other copies of that wallet will see the funds sent to that address.

So in theory I could create a new armory wallet. Make one transaction with it, then make a copy of the wallet file. Continue to use the wallet making hundreds of transactions. Then take that copy I made a while ago, import into Armory and I would see all that happened with that wallet?



Title: Re: Question about wallet(s)
Post by: justusranvier on May 03, 2013, 04:13:23 AM
So in theory I could create a new armory wallet. Make one transaction with it, then make a copy of the wallet file. Continue to use the wallet making hundreds of transactions. Then take that copy I made a while ago, import into Armory and I would see all that happened with that wallet?
You don't even need to do a transaction.

When Armory creates a new wallet it generates two numbers: a root key and a chain code. Every address that wallet will ever use is an output of a function that takes those two numbers and a sequence index (1,2,3,4...) as inputs. You could backup that address once, before ever having made a transaction, then import it to another copy of Armory after having made a few trillion transactions and Armory will be able to calculate your balance from that original backup file.