Bitcoin Forum

For security, I want to encrypt my wallet.dat, delete the plaint text one, and store the encrypted one in safe place. As a result, I can't keep the client running with this wallet. I wanna know, can I still receive BTC with the address of the wallet?

Sorry for my bad English.

No, you can receive bitcoins at your address any time. Your client does not need to be online. Once you return online, you will see the transactions appear after a few minutes.

you will receive any Bitcoin sent to you - in the Blockchain.

but it won't be in your wallet (i.e., it won't be spendable) until you run your client and download the Blockchain into it.

Yes. Transactions to the address are broadcast to the network and finally embedded in the block chain. Once you get online with your wallet in the future, you will download the blocks and receive any Bitcoins sent to the relevant addresses.

It isn't quite right to say that you receive them when you download the block the tx was recorded in. It's more like that's when you find out that the coins are now in one of the addresses that you control. But the answer is the same, you don't need to be online when the coins are sent.

Thank you very much for all the replies above!

Does that mean that even if I don't get online for many years, I still can receive the BTC sent to me years ago when I get online.

Yes.

Absolutely. This means that you can create a new wallet with new addresses while offline, record an address, encrypt the wallet, delete the original, put it in storage, and pay to it whenever you want and essentially be beaming money into your super secure bitcoin savings account.

Got it! Thanks for your suggestion. ;)

BUT [caveat...]

computers and software being what they are (and what they've been in the past), "years" is a slippery concept.

if that's your plan, you'll want to keep an eye on the Bitcoin development process - it's possible that something could transpire which would render a very old 'wallet.dat' incompatible with a new version of the client, without a complicated update process.  a major change in encryption, for example.  or something entirely unforeseen.

don't just ignore it all for five or ten years, and expect it to work without some effort...

Really? So if you have a backup of a wallet.dat, and restore it to another installation of the client elsewhere, perhaps even another version of the client, it won't work?

It should, not sure what he was getting at.

Maybe, it has to be linked ot an up to date blockchain?

If i am missing like 100 blocks and i open bitcoin client, send a transaction, then close it

is it already into the blockchain my transaction? or how long do i need to wait. assuming bitcion client opened and perhaps didn't establish any connections or that little thing didnt turn the wheel on bottom before i closed it.

Well, you must be sure that the client sent that transaction to some other nodes...  If it literally connected to 0 nodes and you close it then of course no, the transaction was not sent, obviously

Yes, he was talking about how the money is not yet in the wallet (as in a available to spend) until the blockchain has been downloaded. Do not confuse wallet with wallet.dat, which is a misnomer: that file contains the keys to the wallet, i.e. the things needed to spend coins in the wallet, not the wallet.

No, you do not. However, the BTC will not post until all of the data is sync'd

Which, I found out the hard way:  Depending on your comp, client, and amount of time since last downloading the blockchain, can take a FRUSTRATINGLY looooong time to sync  >:(  ;D

then stick to blockchain wallet

Use the Multibit client, problem solved