I'm anxious ... how to split wallet.dat?

[chickenado]

I don't want to store all my wealth in a single wallet.dat file because if someone gained access to my laptop they could steal all of it.

But I am scared to split my wealth into several wallet.dat files because I've heard that replacing that file can make it unusable if you don't do it right.

I need a foolproof way of doing this. One where I can be certain that I am not going to lose the coins due to lack of technical knowledge.

I was thinking about running bitcoin inside a virtual Windows machine. One virtual machine for each wallet.dat.   

Do you know any better options?

[grondilu]

I don't want to store all my wealth in a single wallet.dat file because if someone gained access to my laptop they could steal all of it.

But I am scared to split my wealth into several wallet.dat files because I've heard that replacing that file can make it unusable if you don't do it right.

I need a foolproof way of doing this. One where I can be certain that I am not going to lose the coins due to lack of technical knowledge.

I think it is an issue, indeed.

I wish there was a simple way to store some value and forget about it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can be sure that a wallet.dat backup file will keep its value, as long as you don't use its private keys to send some money to someone else.  Because if you do so, the software may have to combine some amounts stored in several private keys, and put the change in a new one.

So as I understand it, the only thing you have to do is to store your wallet.dat file somewhere, and remove it from your .bitcoin directory.  The software will then start with a brand new set of private keys, forgetting about the previous ones.

[caveden]

Splitting and merging wallets is another thing that would be nice to have as feature on the client.

But anyway, you can do it with a little work.

I think these steps would help:

• Make a backup of your wallet.dat somewhere safe.
• Stop bitcoin (if running) and remove the wallet.dat from the default directory (your user home)
• Start the program, it should create a new wallet.dat file on your home, empty.
• Create a new address with your new file.
• Follow first 2 steps again, for this new file.
• Put your old wallet.dat file, with all your money, back into your user home.
• Send the amount you want to the address you created on step 4.

Voilà, you now have two wallet.dat files with different amounts on them.

[caveden]

By the way...

I was thinking about running bitcoin inside a virtual Windows machine. One virtual machine for each wallet.dat.   

It wouldn't protect against someone that has access to your computer, if all the virtual machines are there. It would make it harder only... but the best would be saving multiple copies on offline medias, I guess.

[grondilu]

An other possibility is to use mybitcoin.com to deal with small amounts, and to store only large amounts on a local wallet.dat file.

You would use this file very rarely, and encryt it as soon as you're done with it, never leaving any non-encrypted version on your disk.

[chickenado]

@caveden:

1) Thanks, I tried that using a test account on Linux with 0.02 BTC on it. After removing the wallet.dat from .bitcoin folder a new one was created. Then I copied the old wallet.dat back into the .bitcoin folder. The transactions showed up correctly but the balance showed up as zero. Then I tried this again, this time deleting the entire contents of .bitcoin and this time the program worked normally. Not sure if I'm ready to do the same with 1000 BTC though, I think I'm going to practice a little bit first.

2) Yeah, virtual machines aren't safe either, but the idea was that I save the .vm files outside my laptop.