Bitcoin Forum

I have BTC on coinbase, I'm not sure what to do next. Here's what I assume...

Download qt client and sync.
Click receive.
Click new address and label it something like 'coinbase payment'.
They send money to that address.
It just appears in my wallet? Instantly?
Then I just encrypt it, put my .dat file on some usbs and now i'm secure?

How is my 'new address' created to ensure nobody else would get that address? A unique ID from a database on a remote server generates the address?
Can I just bank like 50% of my BTC and keep the rest to trade? Do I need another wallet to do this?
Can I make a new wallet and send myself coins?

Maybe there's a site that explains all this. if so, sorry I'll read it.

Thanks in advance.

I'll try to address your points as they are presented:
Firstly, client wise, you don't necessarily have to use Bitcoin QT.  I actually dislike it myself; I'm a multibit user.  For increased security, there is armory.  Hell, you could use coinbase as your wallet or some other cloud based wallet like blockchain.info. 
Next, for the receiving - they won't send it.  You have to initiate the payment yourself.  To do this:
1. Copy the wallet address you just generated from your bitcoin client
2. Go to coinbase, click the transactions tab on the left, and then click the send tab.
3. Send it to your address.
The money won't necessarily be instant, especially when it's being sent from coinbase.  It WILL be there within a couple minutes for sure though.  Coinbase will mark it as pending until it has 6 confirmations, though.  As for backing up, yes just copy wallet.dat and you'll be fine.
The address is not generated from a database on a remote server; it's generated via the seed that is your private key.  That's my understanding, anyhow.
Yes, you can keep just 50%.  Just send however much you want from the coinbase wallet.  You can either leave the rest in your coinbase wallet, or create a separate wallet on your client and send it to that.

for bitcoin qt, I can backup the file and name it as something else, lets say btc.dat, to restore do I just copy the file to the bitcoin qt folder and rename it to wallet.dat? or can I leave it as btc.dat and qt will auto-detect? currently I tried it and it doesn't seem to be able to auto detect. Please clarify?

Correct.


No.


Correct.


It seems you already did.

You have lots of options.  It depends on what you want to do.


This is one valid option.


Yes.


Nothing happens "instantly".  Even light doesn't travel across a room "instantly". Everything takes some amount of time.

Depending on a variety of variables, it can be as fast as a fraction of a second.  Somewhere between a few seconds and a few minutes is more likely.  If coinbase suddenly experiences an issue (for example if they are hacked and their bitcoins are stolen just as you are getting ready to make the transfer) then extended times from a few hours to never become possible.


Possibly.  It depends on what you are attempting to secure yourself from.  In reality, it would be better/safer to create a password on your wallet BEFORE clicking "new address".  Even then it's possible, if the computer where you've installed bitcoin-qt is compromised, that your bitcoins could be stolen (since the thief could acquire your password and wallet.dat file from the copromised computer.  It would be safer to generate the receiving address on a computer that has never been connected to the internet and never will be.  It's up to you to decide how risk tolerant you are, and how much inconvenience you are willing to put up with for the sake of security.


Randomly.


No.


Sure. It's your money.  Do what you want with it.


Not necessarily.  It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.


Sure.  You can create as many wallets as you like, and each wallet can have as many receiving addresses as you like.


You're welcome.