Bitcoin Forum

Hello,
I was thinking about this. So what if you were to make a copy of your wallet with 10 BTC in it and save it to a USB. Then you send 1 BTC to someone else's wallet. The copy of your wallet shows it as having 10BTC so if you were to put it on another computer and use it as the wallet.dat file, wouldn't that account still have 10 BTC even though you just sent 1 BTC to someone so if you did this in between three computers, you could generate free BTC?

No the 1BTC would be spent. All the transactions are in a public database called the blockchain. Your wallet.dat only contains some bitcoin address with the corresponding private key. The private key let you sign a transaction and once it's been broadcast to the Bitcoin network then it's too late... The bitcoin has been spent.

If this would work, Bitcoin would be dead already ^^

Ok thanks! I figured it wouldn't work.

heh, yeah, your wallet doesn't store your coins, it just examines the blocks to see where they have earmarked for you.

Haha if that were the case this wouldn't work out for long  ;D

Your wallet never holds your coins, just the keys to them.

The blockchain tells how many coins you have, the one thousands of people have copies of and what the collective mining power controls, you cannot modify that easily at all.

Your wallet may say different to what you really have, that is just because you wallet it out of sync with the network, once it syncs, it will reflect what it really is

1000 percent sure this will not work.

The blockchain holds your coins; not your wallet. The wallet only contains keys to access your coins.

Yeah the first reply was pretty much spot on.
No need for my input!

By prostituting yourself.

Your keys also get updated when a send transaction occurs since when you send out coins the standard bitcoin-qt wallet send coins back to you.  The coins are not located inside the actual wallet file, just the keys.  Somebody gets your keys it's like getting the keys to your car...

As the others have said, this way doesn't generate you free BTC.

If you want to get some BTC without mining take a look at bitvisitor.com or coinofmidas.com (those are the best ways I have found).

*delete this post*

That's called double-spending and does not work within Bitcoin, which is actually one of the reasons why it's suitable as a digital cash:
- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Double-spending

To be a double spend he would need to send the same bitcoin on two different transactions.

Was wondering how this was overcome. Thanks for the education.

That's what he tried to accomplish, right?

Not 100% certain, but the transaction would be calculated in the next block pretty much after the 1btc is sent. Although the wallet shows 10btc, once it loads the data from the block chain, it would deduct the 1btc as it belongs to someone else now so its unconfirmed btc.

While it certainly is possible to drive a car or use Bitcoin without any understanding whatsoever about how stuff works, it is not recommended. Sooner or later, it will hurt.

Talking about "free" bitcoins. What happens with bitcoins that have been earned but the wallet is deleted afterwards? The bitcoins stay in the blockchain but nobody can access them anymore because the keys are gone?

I wonder how much capital is floating in the chain without real owners?

Perhaps there could be some way for clients to periodically verify ownership of the transactions associated with their key, if there's no verification for a significant period (several years?) the funds get released back into the potential mining pool. I don't know how difficult this would be to code.

It's going to become a real issue at some point in the future, where minting new coins is near impractical. The rate of permanent loss will exceed generation.

This is something I have wondered too. What happens to all those BTC that people have in wallets with lost passwords or deleted wallet.dat files, etc? The trouble with releasing BTC that have no verification for a "significant period" is that those BTC may not be unclaimed but just in cold storage or some other long term storage and not really be lost. Interesting point though.

They are lost, but that's not a problem, because all other Bitcoins are worth more then and they are dividable.
My guess is about 1 mio is lost already, but nobody knows for sure.


Defenitely no, paper wallets cannot prove ownership.
Also it's not going to be a problem, the only thing that will happen is that you trade in smaller Bitcoin units, if too much coins are lost.

If this would work, Bitcoin would be dead already

As has been stated before, if this was possible then crypto currency would be dead on arrival.