Bitcoin Forum

I have bitcoin stored on a old hard drive with linux that i haven't used for a long time now.

The problem is updating the blockchain would take me forever so i was wondering does the wallet do sends to the blockchain instantly or do you need to download the whole lot for it to work?

I had them in the wallet because at the time i was paranoid that online companies would get hacked (Which they did).

Does anyone have any instructions how to send using bitcoin without updating the blockchain?

This can be done, if you have knowledge of which exact addresses has coins. If not, you have to manually key them in to check for coins.

Once you have them, you can go to coinb.in to script a raw transaction. The exact procedure is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1963263.msg19590145#msg19590145. Before the first step, go to "Advanced Options" and uncheck "Clear existing inputs when new inputs are loaded.". Just key in the addresses that has coins and press load, one by one before continuing to the second step.

I would strongly recommend you to just make a backup and download the latest version of core and synchronize the blockchain. It's way less of a hassle and safe.

If you can't figure out how to create a raw transaction you could export your Bitcoin's private keys, then import them into an electrum wallet.

I posted some instructions explaining how to extract your Bitcoin's private keys from a recent version of Bitcoin core for windows, and how to import them into electrum. After importing them into electrum you can send your coins almost immediately without needing to download the whole blockchain.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1983382.msg20156280#msg20156280

You can probably adapt the windows instructions to get your private keys from your linux installation.

If that doesn't work all you need from your linux installation is the wallet.dat file. You can import that into an unsynced recent version of Bitcoin core on windows, then extract the private keys in windows without syncing.

Am I wrong that all OP needs to do is

0) start the old bitcoind

1) listreceivedbyaddress

2) for each address:

dumpprivkey $address

3) shutdown old bitcoind

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use pywallet or whatever he wants to create raw transactions sending the bitcoins to some new wallet of their choosing.  Those raw transactions can be pasted into one of the web-services which posts raw transactions for you.  Or, alternatively, OP could import those privkeys into some lightweight client that doesn't download the whole blockchain.

What did I miss?

I don't think Windows has anything to do with it.

You are right about those two options. However the OP said his Bitcoins were stored on an old linux installation on a hard drive he hasn't used for ages. He hasn't said if he normally uses windows, or how familiar he is with linux.

It might be confusing if we give him highly technical instructions to use on an operating system he's not very familiar with.