Am I Doing Something Wrong?

[rogerm]

Hello.

I used Bitinstant.com to deposit $40 USD into my bitcoin wallet. I got a confirmation e-mail, the whole bit. I e-mailed Bitinstant.com support, and they said that, according to Blockchain (or whatever website tracks bitcoin transactions), the transaction went through. However, my bitcoin wallet is showing a balance of 0.00. Here is my wallet address:

1bSghpW8R5cetRX7Aqoz5EobyQDHgpc4g

If it makes any difference, at the bottom of my wallet is a status bar that says "Synchronizing with Network... 32587 blocks remaining" and the number of blocks is steadily getting smaller. Does the sync need to be complete before I can send/receive money?

Please help! I'm going to be out $40, I'm afraid. 

[Otoh]

You have 3.3217 BTC in there, which looks like they cost you $12.04 each after Bitinstant's commission/fees I guess, the tx has over 150 confirmations so np:

https://blockchain.info/address/1bSghpW8R5cetRX7Aqoz5EobyQDHgpc4g

I would recommend https://blockchain.info/wallet rather than the main Bitcoin client wallet for beginers

[Raoul Duke]

Don't worry. After you get all the 194000 blocks from the network you will see the bitcoins on your client.

You can see they're already at your address here: https://blockchain.info/address/1bSghpW8R5cetRX7Aqoz5EobyQDHgpc4g

[Scott J]

If it makes any difference, at the bottom of my wallet is a status bar that says "Synchronizing with Network... 32587 blocks remaining" and the number of blocks is steadily getting smaller. Does the sync need to be complete before I can send/receive money?

The bitcoins are safely in your address.

You just need to wait until you have downloaded the block with the incoming transaction in. Once you've done that, you client will see the funds.

I leave my bitcoin client running to avoid the wait.

[rogerm]

Thanks, friends! You have put my mind at ease.

Now if this block sync can go through...

mod edit: removed sensitive info

[dancupid]

The standard client really needs to deal this.
People's first attempt with bitcoin will almost certainly involve using the official client (despite the fact that it's the most difficult to use for a newbie) - surely its a relatively trivial matter to make it clear that the bitcoins have gone though (unofficially), everything is ok, but please wait while we download the remaining blockchain (with an estimated time)

[Scott J]

The standard client really needs to deal this.
People's first attempt with bitcoin will almost certainly involve using the official client (despite the fact that it's the most difficult to use for a newbie) - surely its a relatively trivial matter to make it clear that the bitcoins have gone though (unofficially), everything is ok, but please wait while we download the remaining blockchain (with an estimated time)

+1

This threw me when I first started out.

[BT3KRANT]

Does multibit correct this?