wallet backup

[smdesign28]

I just pulled all of my bitcoins onto my mac from mtgox. I am using multibit for my wallets. This computer will eventually have very limited access to the internet and will be considered my "vault". I exported the keys onto an external hardrive, as well as several flash drives that I will keep in different locations. Also, I will print out my encryption password and keep several printouts in several locations as well.

My question: should I delete all of my wallets from Multibit and rely only on the keys that I exported? Those keys are essentially, my bitcoins, correct? This money is savings and I will not need ready access to it except to sell it when they eventually hit $10,000 per bitcoin

Please help. The more I read the more confused I get!!!

[kernellinux]

I'm fairly new to bitcoin myself, but it would seem to me that if you planned on saving it the best way would be a paper wallet. Which from what you're saying is kind of what you did. There is a site bitaddress.org that will generate a piece of paper with a public and private key. You can save the page (file save-as) and open it on your computer OFFLINE decreasing the potential that someone could snoop on you as you create the wallet. In theory as long as you have both your public and private keys, either from the software multibit or from a website like bitaddress.org you should be okay to access your wallet whenever you need to. One of the nice things about bitaddress.org is that you can put ONLY your public address into blockchain.info and keep an eye on your account balance, but since the private keys are at home in your safe, no one can access them to spend them.

[smdesign28]

My question is, is the key file created in multibit that I backed up from my desktop actually my bitcoin? Let me pose this question differently. If my laptop got burned to a crisp in a fire, but I had the exported key file on a flash drive at my inlaws' house, would I be able to recover my bitcoins?

[Drizzle]

The answer is yes. I asked a similar question recently, and got told that the coins themselves are kept in transactions, and the wallet on my drive doesn't really hold them. That's why I can send coins to it without being online.

[Zeal0t]

If I am correct then every bitcoin exists in public for the whole network to see, and each coin is associated with a public key (wallet address). This means that if your wallet is offline for a week and you have received many transactions they WILL be credited once the wallet catches up to the block chain.

[DannyHamilton]

If I am correct then every bitcoin exists in public for the whole network to see, and each coin is associated with a public key (wallet address). This means that if your wallet is offline for a week and you have received many transactions they WILL be credited once the wallet catches up to the block chain.

Yes.

[zbe]

How do you export keys? Is that the same as exporting the wallet.dat file and saving it all around?

[canoe]

Copying wallet.dat around is a good way to backup all your keys.  But you should encrypt your wallet.dat so that if anyone gets a hold of it, they can't use it.

If you actually want to see your private keys in the satoshi client, you can run:
  bitcoind dumpprivkey <one_of_your_addresses>
It's fun for learning what they look like but be very careful what you do with that private key because it can be used to access your bitcoins at that address.

[tyrion70]

I'd suggest taking a look at https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet.. If you want to keep it safe, a paper wallet is the way to go.. Then just create another wallet one as a "hot" wallet to use for actual payments etc..

Hth