How many wallets do I need?

[leen93]

From what I understand, whenever you send BTC from that wallet afterward, you are potentially linking those different addresses together.

If you want to leave the coins untraced, use Bitmixer.io or wait for Dark Wallet. The function in Blockchain.info is a bit buggy

or just use an exchange 

[1713279581]

1713279581

[manselr]

I use Bitcoin Core for the main stack and simply send the coins im going to need if I go out to the mycellium one on the phone or whatever. It's like getting money out of the bank (Core) and putting it into the wallet (smartphone).

[bitcoinrocks]

I have 3 wallets:

- main wallet
- Blockchain web wallet
- Wallet32 mobile wallet

I keep my BTC in my main wallet, but when I want to spend some, I transfer that amount to the Blockchain wallet and then use SharedCoin to transfer it to my mobile wallet from where I spend it.  That way the people/businesses I spend money with don't know my total BTC balance.

Now I need to receive some BTC and I'd prefer not to share my total BTC balance with the sender.  Can I have him send the BTC to my existing Blockchain web wallet and then use SharedCoin to send it to my main wallet?  Or do I need to open a second Blockchain web wallet that has never received BTC from my main wallet?

You can generate a new address in your existing blockchain wallet.  Then give that address to the sender.  Then once you receive the transaction, you can use SharedSend to send it to your "main wallet".  Once you've done that, you can "archive" the new blockchain.info address so that it will never be used again.  That way it won't be connected to any other address in that wallet.

When I send the BTC from that 1-time address to my main wallet, couldn't it be linked to other addresses in the same wallet?  For example if there were a tiny amount of BTC on some of the other addresses in the wallet that were combined with the BTC going out from the 1-time address?

So empty your blockchain.info wallet first (so that you don't have "a tiny amount of BTC on some of the other addresses"), or archive those addresses first, and then remove them from archive afterwards, or use the blockchain.info feature that allows you to choose which outputs you are spending.

Honestly I think it's simpler and easier to just open a second Blockchain wallet.

[President_Of_Monero]

I have about 20 wallets, one bitcoin core, and then a shitload of alt wallets, including, of course, monero

[SirLolicon]

Honestly, you'll be needing maybe around 4 wallets?

1 Online Wallet for quick spending
1 Mobile Wallet for on the go spending
1 Bitcoin Core for security
1 Cold Storage for saving and security

for the online and mobile wallet, I'd recommend MyCelium.
for cold storage, maybe a Physical Bitcoin would be awesome.

[Amph]

3 wallet are good imho, generally speaking one is for your main desktop with low amount on it, and two for cold storage, because sometime they can be corrupted, if you remove too early your pendrive/other hw error/ecc... one never know

i like to have this setup myself

Paper wallets are better for cold Storage

i don't like paper wallet, it is better to have an encrypted wallet and use it on another machine, it is much safer than any other solution

two machines are mandatory if you want to have the best security and therefore at least two wallet

[cyclops]

From what I understand, whenever you send BTC from that wallet afterward, you are potentially linking those different addresses together.

If you want to leave the coins untraced, use Bitmixer.io or wait for Dark Wallet. The function in Blockchain.info is a bit buggy

or just use an exchange 

The exchange do knows where the coins came from and to who it sends them, and they usually have your personal info...

[sandy47bt]

Simple, just make another address using wallet do you prefer

In this case, i recommend use Electrum
You can set input manually, so these address won't linked in any way

[SirLolicon]

From what I understand, whenever you send BTC from that wallet afterward, you are potentially linking those different addresses together.

If you want to leave the coins untraced, use Bitmixer.io or wait for Dark Wallet. The function in Blockchain.info is a bit buggy

or just use an exchange 

The exchange do knows where the coins came from and to who it sends them, and they usually have your personal info...

Not only that, exchanges have a very big attack risk.

[btc-facebook]

or just use an exchange 

Exchanger is not a safe wallet since you're not own the private key...also exchanger has a larger chance to get scam rather than online wallet, for example : Bter or shareX exchanger,etc

For me , I'm just enjoy using blockchain as my only one wallet. But I'm also aware that it can always keep the bitcoin forever. Might getting another potential long lasting wallet.
Hmm ... what will it be...?

[cyclops]

From what I understand, whenever you send BTC from that wallet afterward, you are potentially linking those different addresses together.

If you want to leave the coins untraced, use Bitmixer.io or wait for Dark Wallet. The function in Blockchain.info is a bit buggy

or just use an exchange 

The exchange do knows where the coins came from and to who it sends them, and they usually have your personal info...

Not only that, exchanges have a very big attack risk.

Yes there is too much risk involved there...

I've used bitmixer.io in the past, note that I am not endorsed to them, and as for now they've run a legit business. All will change once DarkWallet gets out of Alpha, as it will allow us to "obfuscate" all the coins history.

[sandykho47bt]

Isn't 1 wallet is enough ? Just use PC wallet
You can use electrum / multibit, they are lightweight wallet & simple

[Amph]

Isn't 1 wallet is enough ? Just use PC wallet
You can use electrum / multibit, they are lightweight wallet & simple

those are client not wallet, wallet is the file called wallet.dat and OP is asking how many do you need of those, and it is better to have at least two

[FinanceUS]

Isn't 1 wallet is enough ? Just use PC wallet
You can use electrum / multibit, they are lightweight wallet & simple

those are client not wallet, wallet is the file called wallet.dat and OP is asking how many do you need of those, and it is better to have at least two

I think client and wallet are just two words with the same meaning.

Electrum or multibit also has its own format of "wallet.dat" where private keys are stored.

[Palakka]

for me 1 or 2 wallet to transaction bitcoin
if do you have many wallet you can make confusion.

[rayhan]

just use 2 wallet ... main wallet with multibit as wallet to save bitcoin with big amount, and blockchain.info to save a bit bitcoin

[Kprawn]

I am also a bit paranoid about that... So I created 100's of paper wallets to split my coins.

I then sweep a paper wallet with a small amount, every time I want to buy something big. I am lucky to have a Bitcoin Vending machine close by... so I just buy BTC and scan it directly to one of these paper wallets.

After the paper wallet was sweeped, I never use it again. 

So in affect, my paper wallets will only be linked, once it is sweeped and the coins I hodl/hoard... will never be linked to my main wallets.

You should not have all your Bitcoins in one basket. 

[twister]

How many wallets do one need depends on how many Bitcoins one has. If you have a small amount of bitcoins, say less than 1 then a single on-line wallet, like electrum with encrypted password wallet will suffice and would get you by for your day to day needs. Just make sure that your system isn't infected.

If you're planning to have more than one then it is better you move your funds to a cold storage wallet. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage

You don't have to have another system for cold storage you can just use air gap between the wallets which are off-line and on-line.

[Solange]

just use 2 wallet ... main wallet with multibit as wallet to save bitcoin with big amount, and blockchain.info to save a bit bitcoin

This is what I do. I don't think you need loads of wallets. I keep my coins backed up on a usb and have a little I use in my blocklchain.info (2-factor secured with 2 password). Make sure to write the wallet seeds down to on both blockchain.info and your desktop wallet so you can easily recover them if something goes wrong.

[nor9865]

Get as many as you can. What harm can it do? Check them out til you find the one you like then dump the rest.