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Bitcoin => Bitcoin Technical Support => Topic started by: Juancito on September 12, 2019, 12:38:10 AM



Title: Transfer to a never online wallet.
Post by: Juancito on September 12, 2019, 12:38:10 AM
Hello, I am a beginner in the world of bitcoin and opt for the most complicated way to make a transfer. A few days ago I wanted to withdrawal bitcoins from a page to pass them to my wallet, I created an armory wallet without knowing that I had to download 240 gb of bitcoincore, I used the adress that I generated by armory and now I have to wait 3 days to download all The blocks and know if the transaction is concrete. I need to know if there is any way to connect that wallet to blockchain or bitcoincore, or if when armory is online it will be my bitcoins and be able to use them. Thank you.

Sorry for my bad english.


Title: Re: Transfer to a never online wallet.
Post by: nc50lc on September 12, 2019, 02:34:10 AM
-snip-
I need to know if there is any way to connect that wallet to blockchain or bitcoincore, or if when armory is online it will be my bitcoins and be able to use them.
Both are possible, you can use your addresses now for accepting bitcoins and check the balance on any blockexplorer (https://live.blockcypher.com/btc).
The correct balance in the wallet will be updated after you (sync) reached the block where the TX was included.

Or if you can follow slightly non-beginner guides (https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/18088/how-to-obtain-the-private-key-of-an-armory-wallet),
You can also export the private keys of the funded address(es) and import them to a lightweight/SPV wallet like Electrum that doesn't require to download the full blockchain.

As for the Main question, yes you can receive bitcoins even if your wallet is offline;
it's yours as long as you have the private key/SEED (inside the wallet or written as backup).


Title: Re: Transfer to a never online wallet.
Post by: NeuroticFish on September 12, 2019, 08:18:25 AM
Hello, I am a beginner in the world of bitcoin and opt for the most complicated way to make a transfer. A few days ago I wanted to withdrawal bitcoins from a page to pass them to my wallet, I created an armory wallet without knowing that I had to download 240 gb of bitcoincore, I used the adress that I generated by armory and now I have to wait 3 days to download all The blocks and know if the transaction is concrete. I need to know if there is any way to connect that wallet to blockchain or bitcoincore, or if when armory is online it will be my bitcoins and be able to use them. Thank you.

Sorry for my bad english.

First thing you have to understand about Bitcoin is that the coins are not in your wallet, they are "on the blockchain". The wallet only handles private keys.
This also means that:
1. You can see at any block explorer by only telling your address (make sure it's only the address, no seed or private key!) if the transaction took place. Please make sure there's at least one confirmation before you consider you indeed have the money.
2. A wallet contains the keys for multiple addresses, so if you have coins on multiple addresses and want to check the sum on block explorer you'll have to check all addresses separately.
3. You can spend at any time the money sent to you. For example, if not sync-ed yet you could export the private key or seed and use another wallet to spend your coins (warning! it's just an example and it's not advised to do this when you have hardware wallets, since this will make them insecure!).


Title: Re: Transfer to a never online wallet.
Post by: bob123 on September 12, 2019, 08:30:05 AM
If the transaction got confirmed - which you can check on a block explorer, e.g. https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/ (https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/) - then you already received the coins.

In order to spend them, you have 2 options:

1) Either wait for core to sync and access them using armory (if you want to continue using armory) or
2) Export the private key of that address and import it into a lightweight wallet which does not require to have the whole blockchain downloaded (e.g. electrum (https://electrum.org/#home)).

You can export the private keys by going to: wallet properties -> backup wallet -> export key list.


Title: Re: Transfer to a never online wallet.
Post by: HCP on September 20, 2019, 10:48:39 PM
If you want to check if the transaction was successful before your wallet is synced, simply use a block explorer like blockchain.com, BlockCypher etc to check the balance of the address you sent coins to...

If you want to be able to spend those coins without waiting for Bitcoin Core and Armory to fully sync, you would need to export your private keys and then import them into another wallet. I have an old post in the Armory support boards that shows how to export (with screenshots) here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4746784.msg43255691#msg43255691