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Title: Bitcoin client backward compatible w/ older wallet.dat? Post by: Stephen Gornick on December 18, 2010, 08:27:25 PM Saw this Twitter status update:
Does the #bitcoin protocol have a version number that allows to upgrade if someone leaves the system for 5 - 10 years? http://twitter.com/stephanwehner/statuses/16224034316361728 I think what is being asked is, if a client were not upgraded for a very long time, could it still communicate? Either way, will the future clients be backward compatible as far as being able to access today's wallet.dat? A lot can happen in 5 to 10 years. IPv6, various vulnerabilities discovered, encrypted wallet.dat, etc. (Incidentally, ... isn't the reason most who have left the system for 5 - 10 years due to being incarcerated?) Title: Re: Bitcoin client backward compatible w/ older wallet.dat? Post by: theymos on December 18, 2010, 08:42:37 PM The public/private keys are in there, so it should always be possible to recover them, even if Bitcoin can't do it automatically.
Title: Re: Bitcoin client backward compatible w/ older wallet.dat? Post by: Stephen Gornick on December 18, 2010, 10:40:14 PM How would I merge the keys from an old wallet.dat into current. If I can launch the client, I can just transfer to address from a new wallet, but is it possible to add those keys into another wallet?
Title: Re: Bitcoin client backward compatible w/ older wallet.dat? Post by: theymos on December 19, 2010, 02:49:16 AM Quote is it possible to add those keys into another wallet? It's possible, but Bitcoin doesn't do it. A future version of Bitcoin might do it, though. In any case, it will be possible to manually extract keys from an old wallet and insert them into a new one. Title: Re: Bitcoin client backward compatible w/ older wallet.dat? Post by: Stephen Gornick on June 16, 2011, 07:20:29 AM A future version of Bitcoin might do it, though. Just to bookend this thread: Pull #220, Wallet and key import and export - https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/220 |