Wallet - How long does it last offline?

[plarkplark]

Hi,

Just some newbie questions. I have about 3 BTC now. My wallet.dat is on my PC, and backup too.

What if:

1. I don't go " online"  for several months? Would I still recieve payments made, and does the BTC client just " catch up"?
2. I loose my PC wallet (harddisk crash) and I forgot to update my wallet.dat on the USB? Does my Balance revert back to date of backup?
3. I loose my wallet completely?


Very much thanks

[MrWizard]

Newbie here two with two weeks experience with bitcoins.

AFAIK:
1) Whether offline for a few days or a few months, the bitcoin client will "catch up" on payments made to you.
2) You can restore your wallet from a backup and as above, the bitcoin client will catch you up.
3) Just like real cash, if you lose your wallet and backup(s), your money is forever GONE.

[raresaturn]

Newbie here two with two weeks experience with bitcoins.


2) You can restore your wallet from a backup and as above, the bitcoin client will catch you up.

That is so cool   

[elements]

In order to make payments to your offline wallet you should create several addresses and copy them.

Then you can make payments to these addresses which you created and stored in your offline wallet.

For payments to you offline wallet I suggest to only use the addresses which are stored on the offline wallet dat (some other guys have lost their bitcoin because the send BTC to their online wallet's addresses which were not yet created when they did their backup).

Welcome to the bitcoin community


PS: Usually the offline wallet.dat will catch up even if you did payments to "new addresses" which are not stored in the backup...but sometimes that doesn't work - so to be sure only use addresses which are stored in your offline wallet.dat

[plarkplark]

So basicly your wallet.dat is your "Creditcard" with your PIN number engraved in it,

Kind of secure, but imho a bit dangerous if it contains more then a dozen bitcoins (losing it means a heavy loss).

[runlinux]

thanks for that bit if information! *note to self... backup wallet... again...*

[elements]

So basicly your wallet.dat is your "Creditcard" with your PIN number engraved in it,

Kind of secure, but imho a bit dangerous if it contains more then a dozen bitcoins (losing it means a heavy loss).

You can build a secure wallet by using a "virgin" offline computer which has never been used online.
You install the client and create a few addresses. Then you print them out as a hardcopy OR creata a textfile with them which you put on a virgin thumb drive.

Then you use your regular computer and send coins to the aforementioned addresses. This way your "secure" wallet receives the coins without ever being connected to the internet and therefore secure from hacking.

You also should make sure, that you make a lot of backups of your secure wallet.
The important part is, that your secure wallet never gets connected - so do not use a thumb drive which you switch between computers. As soon as any rewriteable medium is used online consider it tainted and do not use it on your offline computer.

Hope this helps
 

[JoelKatz]

1. I don't go " online"  for several months? Would I still recieve payments made, and does the BTC client just " catch up"?

Yes. If someone posts a transaction to you, that transaction is part of the public record forever. You can claim those coins at any time.

2. I loose my PC wallet (harddisk crash) and I forgot to update my wallet.dat on the USB? Does my Balance revert back to date of backup?

It depends. In most cases, your old wallet.dat will contain precisely the same keys as the new one, so you'll have your full balance. However, it is possible that your backup wallet will be completely empty. For example:

1) I get 100 bitcoins to account A. I backup my wallet.
2) I transfer 1 bitcoin to account B. My client creates a transaction that imports the 100 bitcoins from account A, export 1 bitcoind to account B and exports my 99 bitcoins of 'change' to a new internal account.
3) I lose my wallet, my backup only has account A, which now has 0 bitcoins.

The client actually creates accounts by the hundred, even though it doesn't show them all to you. So odds are the keys the new wallet used are in your old wallet anyway.

3. I loose my wallet completely?

Coins are lost forever.