Years ago I played Diablo, then Diablo II, great games by Blizzard (makers of World of Warcraft); on Windows XP.  When I wanted to play those games again using my newer Windows 7 PC I could not; the operating system of Windows 7 no longer allowed it. Same for iTunes-- would not install in 64 bit version of Windows 7 without a serious hack most could not do.

So I am saying what if something similar happened with a Bitcoin wallet associated with a specific Bitcoin wallet client software-- what if the operating system upgrade caused the Bitcoin wallet client software to no longer work, like what happened with the Diablo game? One would then need to switch to a different bitcoin wallet client software program-- but then what happens to one's BTC money, can the wallet data file from the now non-functioning software somehow be pulled/imported/read into a newer wallet client that does work on the upgraded operating system? If not one would kinda be screwed. With digital data I would want to know the BTC money would not be lost in such a case. I suppose the best thing might be to be sure one has a cold storage paper backup of one's BTC, but then I am not even sure how to do that yet with my Android wallet but there is probably a way (a topic for another post).

Just saying I feel disillusioned (lied to? from what I heard in the documentary that got me interested in BTC in the first place) about the potentional of BTC for micropayments; like I said, if someone wanted to charge 10 cents for someone to read their full blog article for example (not me, just someone, anyone), the customer would incur a 30% (3 cents) transaction fee and would likely feel ripped off. So I feel sad that my notion of the use of BTC for micropayments seems to be an illusion.

Now for using BTC for say buying a taxi ride, or a hotel room for a night-- no problem on my end, as the small BTC network processing fee that I have now learned about is extremely minimal and is nothing like the fee a typical credit card would charge.

 
So I have some BTC in a wallet on my phone and want to send a small amount to a friend who just set up a bitcoin wallet on his phone. I thought from watching a documentary on BTC (The Rise and Rise of the Bitcoin) that one of the great features of bitcoin was that there were no transmission fees, no processing fees. But as I go to send 1 mBTC (28 cents usd), the app wants to charge me "A small network fee of mBTC 0.10 will be paid" which amounts to 3 cents usd. wtf? 3 cents cost to send 28 cents? That is not a no processing no transmission fee, quite the contrary it is almost a 10% transaction processing fee. 10%?!  Granted, the 3 cents (.10 mBTC) processing fee is the same regardless of sending 1 mBTC or 100 mBTC but still I thought the great perk of Bitcoin was no transmission processing fees? So much for say charging a nickel in bitcoin to someone to read a blog article-- the processing fee would cost almost as much as the income, complete rip off. Am i missing something here? I feel really lied to in the documentary and getting into Bitcoin. I can of course just hold my Bitcoin and dump it at some point, but I wanted to send small amounts to friends also new to Bitcoin to try out the sending and receiving of Bitcoin-- but I did not expect the processing fees.

So if i have a backup of a wallet.dat file from e.g. Electrum, I could use another wallet app/client like Armor to read/import that wallet.dat file?  This is what I am asking; I don't want my $ in the form of bitcoin depend on the continued existence of any single bitcoin wall app/client, because if that app/client no longer works with an operating system (as I have seen happen with some games), I would be SOL (screwed).

Noob here.    If I have bitcoins in a specific bitcoin client wallet (e.g. Amor, or Multibit HD, etc) and for some reason that wallet and its associated software client on my phone or pc no longer works (perhaps no longer supported by the operating system-- I have seen that happen with games, e.g. Diablo I, Diablo II games would not run on Windows 7), how would I get my bitcoin money? I don't understand if a bitcoin wallet from one specific software client is portable for importing into a different software client.  Of course one should backup one's wallet, but that won't do any good if the software client that creates the backup does so in its proprietary data file format.  Cold storage is one option I suppose, would that work, but still what if one did not want cold storage and its theft risks? Confused, and this seems important to me at least, so i know I would not lose my $ because of software no longer working.

Thank you all. I am a noob at this (but started with computers when they were teletypes and index card hoppers, but wow this bitcoin thing is wEirD and I am trying to understand it-- watched a couple of documentaries (Rise and Rise of the Bitcoin, etc) and read a couple of kindle books on this; still, bizarre.


I hope, it is on the edge of my understanding.

I just found this site, helps
bitaddress.org
because I generated a public and private set of keys both in text format and QR image which now I kind of get it-- the pair of those represents a 'Wallet' or safe deposit box to be loaded with bitcoin money or not, and one keeps the private key, well, private, and uses the public key (or QR code) to let the world or someone I am giving or getting bitcoins from the 'address' of my wallet to send/receive bitcoin. I like the bitaddress.org site because it also generated bitcoin paper that if one had a color printed could actually be printed out to look like money, for cold storage (like in a ziplock bag stored under the proverbial mattress, lol).

I will look into this, but already as I read the link you provided, it rapidly goes over my head, and I have been a geek for decades. This has to become simple if BitCoin is to grow in adoption by the masses. I am reading the link above and immediately come across "private seed"; say what? "private key"; say what? "paper keypair"; excuse me?  What I mean is, it should be as easy as a menu choice from a wallet to print or create a text file with info that can be sent to my home printer to make a hardcopy of my bitcoin money. Right now I am lost as to how to easily do this in a straighforward manner; and if it can not be done easy and straightforward, how is this going to work with rapid and widespread adoption (I was frustrated enough figuring out how to get my initial bitcoin money in my phone's wallet, had to drive 40 minutes to a bitcoin ATM).

Just purchased my first bitcoin at a bitcoin ATM yesterday ($100), woohoo! Put in the $, had to give my cell phone number (kind of don't like that, defeats principle of bitcoin anonymity right?) to get a confirmation, I supposed on the ATM's end it is to be sure my phone works so as to receive bitcoin transmission? Anyhow, used Bitcoin android app (gold coin with black dollar sign on it) to receive the bitcoin money from the ATM as it scanned my bitcoin wallet QR code from my wallet. All good.

Question: How do I print out a cold storage of my bitcoin? I was able to go into the app's Safety menu and do a backup by email, but my email contains an encrypted file of my bitcoin wall keys; I barely understand what that represents. For principle, for practice, to safeguard my $ a bit more, I want to try making a paper printout of my bitcoin money. I did install BitCoin Core on my Windows PC-- can I use my PC Bitcoin Core wallet somehow to import my cell phone wallet and then do a paper printout? or can i just somehow open the cell phone Bitcoin set of keys/wallet that I emailed myself from my phone and somehow decrypt it and make a printout???