Shared wallets

[Abo Adamson]

Can wallets be shared by different machines?

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[b14d3r11]

I am pretty sure the answer to this is no, because the wallet is a file on your computer which also means if someone hacks you, it is possible you lose all your BTCs. But I am not so sure that you can't do it... it would just take a matter of finding the wallet file and copying it over to the other computer but it could be a bad move... idk its all up to you i suppose?

[Anna Moss]

Depends whether or not you count the cloudbased wallets.   

[wachtwoord]

Of course it can. Just copy the wallet.dat file from one system to another.

[kicneoj]

Yes, you can have a copy of a wallet on multiple machines because a wallet is essentially just a collection of private keys.

[scintill]

Yes, you can have a copy of a wallet on multiple machines because a wallet is essentially just a collection of private keys.

But when bitcoin-qt starts up, will it find out about spends that aren't recorded in its particular wallet.dat?  I know it can, but will it actually update the balance and know it can't spend the old outputs now?

[odolvlobo]

Yes, you can have a copy of a wallet on multiple machines because a wallet is essentially just a collection of private keys.

But when bitcoin-qt starts up, will it find out about spends that aren't recorded in its particular wallet.dat?  I know it can, but will it actually update the balance and know it can't spend the old outputs now?

The problem with copying a wallet between two computers is that they are really two separate wallets that happen to share some keys (assuming you are using bitcoin-qt). They will eventually get out of sync and report different amounts.

Do not attempt to copy one wallet over another when they get out of sync. You will lose bitcoins. It is safer to assume that you can't spend from a copy of a wallet without losing bitcoins.