How to sync cold/offline and watching/online wallets?

[bc7588]

Greetings all!

This is definitely a beginner question so thanks for your patience and help. I have browsed the forums and used google extensively but can't seen to find an answer to the above question.

I have a cold and a watching wallet setup using Electrum. I know how to send BTC via watching wallet and by signing using the cold wallet (thanks to excellent documentation on Electrum site) but I don't know how to sync cold wallet with watching wallet so both show the same balance.

A little more detail about my scenario:
I set up cold/watching wallets using Electrum. They both show 0 BTC to begin with. I then sent some coins, say 0.2 BTC, from an online wallet, say LBC, to Electrum watching wallet. Now the watching wallet shows 0.2 BTC but the cold wallet still shows 0. What do I need to do so that the cold wallet also shows 0.2 BTC? My cold wallet by the way is not connected to the network.

(Just as an aside, I understand that I can always spend the 0.2 BTC even if the cold wallet doesn't show it (by following the process in the Electrum guide and signing it via cold wallet) but I prefer to have my cold wallet show the full balance of BTC I have transferred to the receive addresses owned by this set up. The watching wallet will always get the right balance owned by its receive addresses as its online/connected to the servers. So its really the cold wallet that I want to sync so it shows the same balance.)

Thanks!

[1715233967]

1715233967

[1715233967]

1715233967

[1715233967]

1715233967

[1715233967]

1715233967

[1715233967]

1715233967

[kolloh]

Greetings all!

This is definitely a beginner question so thanks for your patience and help. I have browsed the forums and used google extensively but can't seen to find an answer to the above question.

I have a cold and a watching wallet setup using Electrum. I know how to send BTC via watching wallet and by signing using the cold wallet (thanks to excellent documentation on Electrum site) but I don't know how to sync cold wallet with watching wallet so both show the same balance.

A little more detail about my scenario:
I set up cold/watching wallets using Electrum. They both show 0 BTC to begin with. I then sent some coins, say 0.2 BTC, from an online wallet, say LBC, to Electrum watching wallet. Now the watching wallet shows 0.2 BTC but the cold wallet still shows 0. What do I need to do so that the cold wallet also shows 0.2 BTC? My cold wallet by the way is not connected to the network.

(Just as an aside, I understand that I can always spend the 0.2 BTC even if the cold wallet doesn't show it (by following the process in the Electrum guide and signing it via cold wallet) but I prefer to have my cold wallet show the full balance of BTC I have transferred to the receive addresses owned by this set up. The watching wallet will always get the right balance owned by its receive addresses as its online/connected to the servers. So its really the cold wallet that I want to sync so it shows the same balance.)

Thanks!

As far as I know, you can't make the cold wallet show the correct balance without connect to the network. That is the point of the watching wallet though. To be able to see the live balances of your cold wallets without risk of compromise to the funds or keys.

[pooya87]

Cold storage wallet is a place to sign the transactions, you can call it a "transaction signing tool" instead of a wallet. you give it the transaction and tell the wallet:
"this (these) output(s) belong to this key and i have checked it while i was online, now sign the transaction with the private key belonging to the public key i gave you".

and that is all the cold storage needs to know
- which key to use for signing
- and what to sign

there can be some very complicate (not at all recommended) ways of somehow forcing the cold storage to show the balance but it is not a good idea because you can simply contaminate the cold storage.

remember a cold storage is secure as long as it has no contact with outside world (they call it air tight and for extra measures you can even use QR codes to give the wallet the raw transaction to sign and then use QR code to get the signed tx out without even connecting an storage device to the cold storage to get the tx in and out).

[bc7588]

Thank you pooya87 and kolloh.

I'll stop worrying about having the cold wallet show my balance and just use it for signing. Thanks for the QR codes tip, I'll look into that.

Cheers

[Coin-Keeper]

You are not the first person to ask this question.  There are in fact some "techie" ways to transfer saved files etc... so that the other wallet shows the balance as of transfer.  However; please don't ever do that.  The cold wallet design is set to protect your private keys from ever seeing anything ONLINE.  To transfer files in any way you have to risk that the storage media you are using to make the transfer is 100% clean and malware free.

I really liked the notion that a cold wallet should be considered a SIGNING ONLY wallet.  That conveys the intent properly in my mind.