I downloaded the bitcoin core wallet, what now?

[FruitsBasket]

I have my bitcoin currently at my blockchain wallet, I want to store them at my computer.
What are the things I need to do before I send my funds to my wallet?

Also, my wallet says 6 years and 43 weeks behind...

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[helloeverybody]

I think you will need to wait for the client to fully snyc before you can transfer funds. Its going to take a while.

Obviously remember to backup your wallet.dat too.

[shorena]

I think you will need to wait for the client to fully snyc before you can transfer funds. Its going to take a while.

Correct, it greatly depends on your internet connection, disk and CPU speed. You currently have to download and verify ~55 Gigabyte of blockchain data.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I have my bitcoin currently at my blockchain wallet, I want to store them at my computer.
What are the things I need to do before I send my funds to my wallet?

Also, my wallet says 6 years and 43 weeks behind...

It's going to take you like 3 days to download the full blockchain. Wait for it to download then copy a bitcoin receiving address you have in Core into blockchain.info & send your bitcoin's to Core brother.

You can send funds to Core before the full sync if you want but your wallet balance won't show until you're fully synced.

Don't forget to back up your wallet in Core regularly.

[FruitsBasket]

I think you will need to wait for the client to fully snyc before you can transfer funds. Its going to take a while.

In ten minutes it has done 25 weeks, so it will take a few hours to fully sync with the network.
Though my coputer needs often a reset, because it can not update and every week it has a scheduled update which i can't cancel
So mayby a wallet that needs to sync not the best for me.

Edit: It has done now 1 year in 15 minutes, so it wont take 3 days
That is fast i think also at the same time i am installing visual studio so, prety fast for this pc

[helloeverybody]

I dont know about you, but i use an ssd for my main os and since its takes up so much space to store all the information what ive done is switched so the whole lot saves to a seperate bigger hdd.

[shorena]

I think you will need to wait for the client to fully snyc before you can transfer funds. Its going to take a while.

In ten minutes it has done 25 weeks, so it will take a few hours to fully sync with the network.
Though my coputer needs often a reset, because it can not update and every week it has a scheduled update which i can't cancel
So mayby a wallet that needs to sync not the best for me.

It will get slower the closer you get because the blocks got bigger over time.

Maybe not. There are other local wallets that sync within minutes, multibit (hd), electrum (2), just to name two. Maybe this[1] page can help.


[1] https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

[LFC_Bitcoin]

1 year in 15 minutes?

Damn you must have a fast internet connection & expensive PC.

[FruitsBasket]

1 year in 15 minutes?

Damn you must have a fast internet connection & expensive PC.

Noo lol my pc is just trash, Intel Pentium
It is a 2 years old pc and I think it is worthless, it crashes many times

And thank you shorena for that link, I will look at it

[Velkro]

watch some bitcoin documentaries on youtube, you will get a little grasp what bitcoin is
next buy some little of bitcoin from any exchange, send to your wallet and wait until it will synchronize
then sent it to anyone, to see how it works

now u understand how bitcoin is easy, fast and cheap

[888coin]

I think you will need to wait for the client to fully snyc before you can transfer funds. Its going to take a while.

In ten minutes it has done 25 weeks, so it will take a few hours to fully sync with the network.
Though my coputer needs often a reset, because it can not update and every week it has a scheduled update which i can't cancel
So mayby a wallet that needs to sync not the best for me.

Edit: It has done now 1 year in 15 minutes, so it wont take 3 days
That is fast i think also at the same time i am installing visual studio so, prety fast for this pc

It's fast initially and that's normal, because there were not so many tranactions in early days.

I guess it won't take 3 whole days but your sync speed will surely get slower later. .Good luck.

[FruitsBasket]

watch some bitcoin documentaries on youtube, you will get a little grasp what bitcoin is
next buy some little of bitcoin from any exchange, send to your wallet and wait until it will synchronize
then sent it to anyone, to see how it works

now u understand how bitcoin is easy, fast and cheap

I already have some bitcoin
Today I have won a 0.1 BTC promotion and now  have over 100$ in bitcoin, if my withdrawl gets in
I have never had an amount of over 100$ in bitcoin.

My wallet is now on 4 years and 11 weeks behind, with a little pause inbetween

[Amph]

after the clien finish to sync, do a back up of the holw bitcoin folder, so the next time you don't need to download the whole blockchain again

now you can simply acquire bitcoin in some way and send them to the address of your wallet

[FruitsBasket]

after the clien finish to sync, do a back up of the holw bitcoin folder, so the next time you don't need to download the whole blockchain again

now you can simply acquire bitcoin in some way and send them to the address of your wallet

Hmm backup is prety sure thing I must do that. But what means lock wallet and unlock wallet?
If I don't lock it, there is no password on it?

[helloeverybody]

Yeah, the lock basically puts a password on it. Which is essential.

[FruitsBasket]

Yeah, the lock basically puts a password on it. Which is essential.

Thank you, I thought it was like locking it so you can't send from the address. So if it is locked I still can spend mt bitcoin or do I need to unlock it then and after spending lock it again?

[helloeverybody]

Nah, anytime you try to spend anything u need to unlock it. To get sent btc you obviously dont need to do anything.

[shorena]

Yeah, the lock basically puts a password on it. Which is essential.

Thank you, I thought it was like locking it so you can't send from the address. So if it is locked I still can spend mt bitcoin or do I need to unlock it then and after spending lock it again?

You dont need to lock it no, it will automatically do that. You will however need a new backup after setting a password for the first time. Bitcoin core comes with 100 pregenerated keys. Only those shown to you in the GUI will be part of the encrypted wallet, all others will be removed. This is to make sure there are as little unprotected private keys on your disk as possible. Due to the 100 keys you will also have to make regular backups, depending on the amount of address/priv. key pairs you need.

[FruitsBasket]

Yeah, the lock basically puts a password on it. Which is essential.

Thank you, I thought it was like locking it so you can't send from the address. So if it is locked I still can spend mt bitcoin or do I need to unlock it then and after spending lock it again?

You dont need to lock it no, it will automatically do that. You will however need a new backup after setting a password for the first time. Bitcoin core comes with 100 pregenerated keys. Only those shown to you in the GUI will be part of the encrypted wallet, all others will be removed. This is to make sure there are as little unprotected private keys on your disk as possible. Due to the 100 keys you will also have to make regular backups, depending on the amount of address/priv. key pairs you need.

That is very confusing, I think I will stick to blockchain then and backup my privte key.
If I have my private key, that is good enough for getting my coins back if I loose access to the wallet?

[shorena]

-snip-
That is very confusing, I think I will stick to blockchain then and backup my privte key.
If I have my private key, that is good enough for getting my coins back if I loose access to the wallet?

Each address has a private key, if you use bitcoin core it will create and use more addresses, e.g. for change. If you only received coins on one address and never spend any coins you can just export the private key and import it into a different wallet/serivce. I think multibit or electrum are more up your alley, they only need a single backup of the seed and sync quickly. It will cover all keys (unless those imported). Maybe create a wallet and just look at it for a bit without having any coins in it.