newbie question - If i lost access to my wallets

[soundluva]

hi there,

I have a complete newbie question that i am struggling to understand. basically i am using electrum as a wallet at the moment and may use some other options.

My question is , if for whatever reason the wallet provider disappears/shuts down etc how do i locate my bitcoins?

What is it that makes the bitcoins unqiue to me and would allow me and me only to access them and withdraw/send them

thanks

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[pedrog]

You should always keep backups of your private keys, whatever happens to your wallet provider/computer/house you can always access your coins again.

[shorena]

You should always keep backups of your private keys, whatever happens to your wallet provider/computer/house you can always access your coins again.

In case of electrum the seed and a working copy of electrum software to easily extract the private keys should there be no more electrum servers.

[soundluva]

You should always keep backups of your private keys, whatever happens to your wallet provider/computer/house you can always access your coins again.

ah ok so its the private keys that make the bitcoin uniquely mine?

So lets say electrum disappeared (unlikely but who knows) as long as i have my private keys i could access them?

How would i go about doing that?

thanks

[shorena]

You should always keep backups of your private keys, whatever happens to your wallet provider/computer/house you can always access your coins again.

ah ok so its the private keys that make the bitcoin uniquely mine?

The private keys are whats required to spend bitcoin and what wallets manage and hide for you. Nothing on a private key is tied to you as a person. If you show it to me, I can control your bitcoins same as you.

So lets say electrum disappeared (unlikely but who knows) as long as i have my private keys i could access them?

How would i go about doing that?

thanks

Yes, you can right click on an address in electrum, select "private key" and enter your password to let it show you. It will be shown unencrypted and in very common format (WIF = wallet import format) that is understood by almost all wallets.

[soundluva]

thanks a lot,

So my private keys can be imported into any wallet and it would recover my bitcoins?

final (possibly stupid ) question...what's to stop the developer of a wallet stealing them?

just being paranoid but i would like disaster situations

[pedrog]

You should always keep backups of your private keys, whatever happens to your wallet provider/computer/house you can always access your coins again.

ah ok so its the private keys that make the bitcoin uniquely mine?

So lets say electrum disappeared (unlikely but who knows) as long as i have my private keys i could access them?

How would i go about doing that?

thanks

Check this website: https://www.bitaddress.org

There you can generate a bitcoin address, here's an example:

This is the public address: 1JrkHwduxGWu27tYgFwyY23e8ZXqggAbFa

This is the private key to the above address: 5J5fts11s4mZdJEcMMzuFbjyvva8co5puHimi55NTMQ9HYK2yZx

This key is what allows you to spend the bitcoins in the public address.

With any decent wallet you can import that private key and spend those coins.

Examples:

https://blog.blockchain.com/2014/06/18/tutorial-the-import-export-feature-in-your-blockchain-wallet/

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_import_private_keys

[Mickeyb]

thanks a lot,

So my private keys can be imported into any wallet and it would recover my bitcoins?

final (possibly stupid ) question...what's to stop the developer of a wallet stealing them?

just being paranoid but i would like disaster situations

For one Electrum is open source, last I checked, so is Armory, so you can check the code yourself or take the word of other trusted members. And well, you can just put the wallet on an offline computer/wallet if you're that paranoid.