Several questions

[bitcoinerik]

Hello everyone,

Yesterday I have bought some Dogecoins via Cryptsy.
I would like to have them for a long term, so I would like to take them offline.
I installed dogecoin-qt and withdrawed all my dogecoins to the address in dogecoin-qt.
Is this ment by an "offline wallet"?

When my pc is stolen, I don't want to lose my dogecoins. So there is a "backup wallet" option. I can save a .dat file. When I save that file on an USB stick, is it save then? How can I import it in another pc?

I have encrypted (same as password protected?) my wallet. But when I reopen dogecoin-qt, I am not asked to type in the password. Do I have to type it only when I send money?

When I made a backup (the .dat file) and after that, I send somebody some dogecoins. The next day my compter crashes or will be stolen. Then I restore (?) my wallet (the .dat file) at my new computer. How does the new computer know that I have less dogecoins then in my .dat file is registered?

After encrypting my wallet, there was a warning that my wallet is still not save in case of a virus. What is the risk? The virus doesn't know my password, does it?

Thank you very much for your reply!

Erik

[hilariousandco]

Hello everyone,

Yesterday I have bought some Dogecoins via Cryptsy.
I would like to have them for a long term, so I would like to take them offline.
I installed dogecoin-qt and withdrawed all my dogecoins to the address in dogecoin-qt.
Is this ment by an "offline wallet"?

When my pc is stolen, I don't want to lose my dogecoins. So there is a "backup wallet" option. I can save a .dat file. When I save that file on an USB stick, is it save then? How can I import it in another pc?

No, it's not an offline wallet. Make sure you back up the wallet.dat file. If you keep the wallet.dat file on a usb stick, then that would become an offline wallet.

[bct-lurch]

#After encrypting my wallet, there was a warning that my wallet is still not save in case of a virus. What is the risk? The virus doesn't know my password, does it?

If you have encrypted it, unless the virus runs a brute force attack to crack the passphrase or it uses a keylogger, the wallet should be fine. Just make sure to encrypt it and back it up on another drive\cloud\pc\usb\paper-wallet

http://bitcoin.org/en/secure-your-wallet

[bitcoinerik]

Thanks for your replies!

Does anybody know the answers to my other questions? I can't find them

[asicbender]

Any place you keep your wallet that can disconnect from internet is offline wallet.

[wontonforevuh]

You could also backup the wallet.dat file to dropbox or something in case a usb or hd gets corrupted.

[odolvlobo]

An offline wallet is a wallet that is not connected to the internet.

Backing up your wallet is a smart move. A USB stick is a good place to back it up. Make sure your wallet is encrypted before you back it up.

Trying to keep a wallet in sync on two PCs could result in lost coins because each wallet program assumes that it has the only copy of the wallet.

The program only asks for a password when you want to send money or make a change to the wallet.

A wallet does not contain coins. A wallet contains addresses and their private keys. The wallet program knows how much money you have because it scans the block chain for the addresses in your wallet, and it can send money using the private keys in your wallet.

[bitcoinerik]

An offline wallet is a wallet that is not connected to the internet.

Thank you!

Backing up your wallet is a smart move. A USB stick is a good place to back it up. Make sure your wallet is encrypted before you back it up.

Ok, I will encrypt / password protect (the same?) my wallet in the dogecoin-qt program.

Trying to keep a wallet in sync on two PCs could result in lost coins because each wallet program assumes that it has the only copy of the wallet.

I don't understand how to lose coins in that way..

The program only asks for a password when you want to send money or make a change to the wallet.

Ok thank you.

A wallet does not contain coins. A wallet contains addresses and their private keys.

I don't understand the principle of a private key. My dogecoin-qt program contains one address. How do I know what its private key is?

The wallet program knows how much money you have because it scans the block chain for the addresses in your wallet, and it can send money using the private keys in your wallet.

The "block chain" is something online? So the amount of coins belonging to an address is stored online?

--

Thank you very much again!!

[infinitybo]

Firstable you are free to ask whatsoever you want anyways yeah you do have to type it when you send money.

[DannyHamilton]

Trying to keep a wallet in sync on two PCs could result in lost coins because each wallet program assumes that it has the only copy of the wallet.

I don't understand how to lose coins in that way..

Which is why you are likely to lose coins in that way.  Your lack of understanding of the technical details of how these cryptocurrencies work is likely to lead to confusion and errors when the wallets don't behave the way you assume they will.  As such, your safest option is to NOT try to keep the same address on multiple wallets.

A wallet does not contain coins. A wallet contains addresses and their private keys.

I don't understand the principle of a private key. My dogecoin-qt program contains one address. How do I know what its private key is?

You don't.  The wallet handles that detail for you.  An address is a hash of a public key that is part of a digital signature key pair (private key, public key).  A wallet is a collection of these private keys and the user interface that allows you to use those private keys to send transactions and identify transactions that are sent to you.  If you really want to see your private key, most (but not all) wallets provide an interface to extract the private key.  This interface is dependent entirely on the design of the particular wallet being used and often requires more technical knowledge than the average user has.

The wallet program knows how much money you have because it scans the block chain for the addresses in your wallet, and it can send money using the private keys in your wallet.

The "block chain" is something online? So the amount of coins belonging to an address is stored online?

"The blockchain" is something stored by EVERY full node peer.  These various cryptocurrencies are decentralized and designed to operate "peer-to-peer".  As such, each and every full peer contains all of the necessary information to verify the value associated with each and every address.