Bitcoin Core correct way to backup?

[Discounted]

Hello all,

So I decided on which wallet I want to use, which is the Bitcoin Core wallet. It's familiar to an altcoin wallet I used many years ago, in the way that it has to sync all blocks and uses a wallet.dat file as backup.

I wanted to know if it's enough for me to simply backup the wallet.dat file on an encrypted USB stick? This way I can practically remove Bitcoin Core from my desktop and if I ever wanted to send my funds elsewhere I can re-import the wallet.dat file again, but I can still send funds to this wallet.

I also wonder, if this wallet.dat file is stolen by someone, but my wallet was encrypted, is the wallet.dat file encrypted? Or was that just a local encryption for my desktop.

I would love to just be able to store my holy wallet.dat file away for many years and be able to re-gain access to my wallet using this file, primarily through other wallets too if Bitcoin Core wallet seizes to exist by then.

And perhaps it's also possible, or necessary to store individual private keys in text on a seperate device such as an encrypted USB stick? I was thinking the private keys could be encoded in an encoding language to make them slightly extra secure incase any thief has no idea what he's doing.

[1713436854]

1713436854

[pooya87]

I wanted to know if it's enough for me to simply backup the wallet.dat file on an encrypted USB stick?

Since bitcoin core doesn't support mnemonics that you could write down, the only option is to digitally store the wallet file itself. However, you may want to create more than one backup so that in case you lost the USB stick or it was damaged you could still recover your funds.

I also wonder, if this wallet.dat file is stolen by someone, but my wallet was encrypted, is the wallet.dat file encrypted? Or was that just a local encryption for my desktop.

The file itself is encrypted.

I would love to just be able to store my holy wallet.dat file away for many years and be able to re-gain access to my wallet using this file, primarily through other wallets too if Bitcoin Core wallet seizes to exist by then.

That should never happen considering that bitcoin core is the reference implementation of Bitcoin. But it is open source and many people are using it, so it would be trivial to write a simple script that decrypts and extracts the keys inside the wallet file to be used elsewhere.

And perhaps it's also possible, or necessary to store individual private keys in text on a seperate device such as an encrypted USB stick?

That's an overkill in my opinion.

I was thinking the private keys could be encoded in an encoding language to make them slightly extra secure incase any thief has no idea what he's doing.

A different encoding would provide no security if the thief knows he is stealing a bitcoin wallet.
Only a strong encryption can provide security.

[Discounted]

I wanted to know if it's enough for me to simply backup the wallet.dat file on an encrypted USB stick?

Since bitcoin core doesn't support mnemonics that you could write down, the only option is to digitally store the wallet file itself. However, you may want to create more than one backup so that in case you lost the USB stick or it was damaged you could still recover your funds.

I also wonder, if this wallet.dat file is stolen by someone, but my wallet was encrypted, is the wallet.dat file encrypted? Or was that just a local encryption for my desktop.

The file itself is encrypted.

I would love to just be able to store my holy wallet.dat file away for many years and be able to re-gain access to my wallet using this file, primarily through other wallets too if Bitcoin Core wallet seizes to exist by then.

That should never happen considering that bitcoin core is the reference implementation of Bitcoin. But it is open source and many people are using it, so it would be trivial to write a simple script that decrypts and extracts the keys inside the wallet file to be used elsewhere.

And perhaps it's also possible, or necessary to store individual private keys in text on a seperate device such as an encrypted USB stick?

That's an overkill in my opinion.

I was thinking the private keys could be encoded in an encoding language to make them slightly extra secure incase any thief has no idea what he's doing.

A different encoding would provide no security if the thief knows he is stealing a bitcoin wallet.
Only a strong encryption can provide security.

Thanks a lot for your responses, very helpful.

[LoyceV]

I would love to just be able to store my holy wallet.dat file away for many years and be able to re-gain access to my wallet using this file, primarily through other wallets too if Bitcoin Core wallet seizes to exist by then.

For long-term storage, you may want to consider creating a cold wallet: install Bitcoin Core on a fresh system that hasn't touched the internet, create your wallet, set a password, create several backups of your wallet.dat (on storage devices from different brands), and thoroughly wipe and reinstall your computer before it goes online. Or just keep a spare laptop dedicated to your offline Bitcoin Core, so you can easily get new deposit addresses in the future.

[ABCbits]

I was thinking the private keys could be encoded in an encoding language to make them slightly extra secure incase any thief has no idea what he's doing.

I think what actually you're looking for is Obfuscation[1]. But generally it's not recommended due to risk of forget or unable to extract the data.

I would love to just be able to store my holy wallet.dat file away for many years and be able to re-gain access to my wallet using this file, primarily through other wallets too if Bitcoin Core wallet seizes to exist by then.

That should never happen considering that bitcoin core is the reference implementation of Bitcoin. But it is open source and many people are using it, so it would be trivial to write a simple script that decrypts and extracts the keys inside the wallet file to be used elsewhere.

Additionally you could also,
1. Backup Bitcoin Core.
2. Rely on public archive such as https://archive.org/details/software.
2. Ask someone else who have such file, since many enthusiast run Bitcoin Core.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'd like to spare my 2 sats.

If you're comfortable with using Bitcoin Core's GUI as a wallet, that's good, it's an excellent wallet and you can do nearly anything in the console. There's also an entire community here in this forum and in stackexchange that can help you if you ever screw things up somehow.

But, this is particular sentence here doesn't hold water:

I would love to just be able to store my holy wallet.dat file away for many years and be able to re-gain access to my wallet using this file

If you're thinking of leaving your coins untouched for years, then keeping the keys digitally all this time long is a big no from me. Hard drives, USBs, SD cards, they're vulnerable to corrupt. I strongly recommend you to try out some other wallet, which you'll configure to connect to your full node, and that does support backing up with seed phrase, such as Sparrow or Electrum.

[DireWolfM14]

I wanted to know if it's enough for me to simply backup the wallet.dat file on an encrypted USB stick? This way I can practically remove Bitcoin Core from my desktop and if I ever wanted to send my funds elsewhere I can re-import the wallet.dat file again, but I can still send funds to this wallet.

That's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and as others have alluded you should make multiple back ups, on different types of media such as CD and USB/MicorSD.

I also wonder, if this wallet.dat file is stolen by someone, but my wallet was encrypted, is the wallet.dat file encrypted? Or was that just a local encryption for my desktop.

If you need a password to spend from the wallet, then it is indeed encrypted.  Even a wallet with exceptionally strong password/encryption that's been stolen should be considered compromised.  Don't wait, move all funds immediately. 

And perhaps it's also possible, or necessary to store individual private keys in text on a seperate device such as an encrypted USB stick? I was thinking the private keys could be encoded in an encoding language to make them slightly extra secure incase any thief has no idea what he's doing.

Recent releases of bitcoin core are hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets, and you can use the HDSEED to backup and restore the wallet.  An easy way to obtain your HD seed and back up several private keys (including imported ones) all at once is to use dumpwallet.  That will create a clear text file with a bunch of your private keys and associated addresses, but one key is of particular importance; it'll be labeled "hdseed1."  It's a WIF private key, and it can be used to restore a bitcoin core HD wallet with all the other addresses and change addresses.  It will not restore any private keys that were imported using importprivkey or importmulti.

Generally speaking I shy away from storing my backups digitally.  I don't trust the archival longevity of digital media.  The backups I trust most are seed phrases written on paper.  A private key or a QR code on paper is also extremely robust, in my opinion.  The most important thing, however is redundancy. 

[NotATether]

Yes, the canonical way to back up a Core walletis to just copy the .dat file to an external storeage. Make sure that you copy it to multiple storage drives to avoid data loss, and make sure that all the copies are protected with a strong password so that hackers can not brute force it even if they try to sell the wallet online.

[HCP]

I wanted to know if it's enough for me to simply backup the wallet.dat file on an encrypted USB stick? This way I can practically remove Bitcoin Core from my desktop and if I ever wanted to send my funds elsewhere I can re-import the wallet.dat file again, but I can still send funds to this wallet.

That is indeed possible. However, depending on your actual requirements, may not be the best strategy.

I also wonder, if this wallet.dat file is stolen by someone, but my wallet was encrypted, is the wallet.dat file encrypted? Or was that just a local encryption for my desktop.

The data stored in the wallet.dat is encrypted.

I would love to just be able to store my holy wallet.dat file away for many years and be able to re-gain access to my wallet using this file, primarily through other wallets too if Bitcoin Core wallet seizes to exist by then.

Note that while the actual format of the wallet.dat is published and "known"... it is a format that is pretty much exclusive to Bitcoin Core (and some of it's spinoffs like Bitcoin Knots). If you're concerned about the long term, you might want to consider other backup options (or perhaps other wallets).

And perhaps it's also possible, or necessary to store individual private keys in text on a seperate device such as an encrypted USB stick? I was thinking the private keys could be encoded in an encoding language to make them slightly extra secure incase any thief has no idea what he's doing.

Personally, I wouldn't go trying to create "clever" encryption systems... That often creates more issues than it solves.

[nc50lc]

-snip-
And perhaps it's also possible, or necessary to store individual private keys in text on a seperate device such as an encrypted USB stick?

If you're using a descriptor wallet, you can use listdescriptors "true" and paste the result to a txt file then encrypt it.
Those descriptors can be used to import your master keys to another wallet using importdescriptors command.

But there's no advantage on doing that over backing-up the wallet.dat file itself aside from a "written in paper" backup option.

[Saint-loup]

Recent releases of bitcoin core are hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets, and you can use the HDSEED to backup and restore the wallet.  An easy way to obtain your HD seed and back up several private keys (including imported ones) all at once is to use dumpwallet.  That will create a clear text file with a bunch of your private keys and associated addresses, but one key is of particular importance; it'll be labeled "hdseed1."  It's a WIF private key, and it can be used to restore a bitcoin core HD wallet with all the other addresses and change addresses.  It will not restore any private keys that were imported using importprivkey or importmulti.

Generally speaking I shy away from storing my backups digitally.  I don't trust the archival longevity of digital media.  The backups I trust most are seed phrases written on paper.  A private key or a QR code on paper is also extremely robust, in my opinion.  The most important thing, however is redundancy.  

I agree with you a file can easily get corrupted, by a virus, a magnetic/electronic incident or a bug. So personally I think it's safer to use a HD seed when I can.
Do you know if there is a way to use a passphrase with this HD seed like we can do with BIP39 mnemonic seeds? With a Bitcoin Core feature or an external tool.
BIP38 allows to get WIF private keys with passwords then I wonder if it's possible to do something like that with a Bitcoincore HD seed (btw it's hdseed=1 actually).

[BitMaxz]

Take note that USB flash drives have 10 years lifespan if you want to hold them for a long term make sure to make multiple copies to other storage or devices like CD/DVD discs these two have a long lifespan of around 30 to 50yrs.

Since the wallet is encrypted you are safe if you put a long password but if someone stole the wallet.dat file with a short password they can easily bypass it, unlike having a strong and long password.

And I would suggest you for safety never connect your PC/Laptop where you install Bitcoin core to the internet. You can make an online watch-only wallet to a live PC/Laptop separately for generating raw unsigned transactions and transfer them to your offline PC through a USB stick to sign the transaction.

[Saint-loup]

Do you know if there is a way to use a passphrase with this HD seed like we can do with BIP39 memonic seeds? With a Bitcoin Core feature or an external tool.

So far, there's no BIP to encrypt HD/BIP 32 seed with password/passphrase. The other option is use common encryption algorithm (such as AES-256) through offline/open-source tool such as https://cryptotools.net/aes. But since it's not standard/popular method to encrypt HD/BIP 32 seed, you also need to write down how to encrypt/decrypt it and backup relevant software/tool.

That's what scares me, having a hidden bug when using the tool to encrypt the seed or not being able to find a good version of the tool when I want to decrypt the seed in several years. That's why I'd need a very standardized and reliable tool to encrypt a HD seed. BIP38 seemed perfect for that.

[BitMaxz]

CD/DVD only have long lifespan if you buy good ones and store it properly. You might as well as buy specific storage which specially designed for long term archive, such as M-Disc or SanDisk Memory Vault.

I checked both of them that's too much for the human lifespan unless you can live more than 100yrs or only if you have family that you can inherit.
Cd/DVD discs are enough for me to hold my coins for the long term. Since Bitcoin or money, you can't take them with you when you die.

M-disc would be a great deal it has 1000yrs of lifespan this would be a nice option if one of your grandchildren is your heir of this backup for future holdings and to later heirs(for new generations). It's not so expensive it's around $80 for 25GB which is too big for wallet backup.

[pooya87]

That's what scares me, having a hidden bug when using the tool to encrypt the seed or not being able to find a good version of the tool when I want to decrypt the seed in several years. That's why I'd need a very standardized and reliable tool to encrypt. BIP38 seemed perfect for that.

AES itself is standardized, you just have to know what you are doing when setting the parameters such as padding. cipher mode, etc. so that you can replicate it using any other tool.
BIP38 itself is not that popular either. The major wallets don't support it and the implementations are rare and mostly web tools that may be open source like bitaddress.org.

[LoyceV]

Cd/DVD discs are enough for me to hold my coins for the long term.

I have had many CDRs that were useless after a few years. Some are still okay, but I'll always asume they won't last.

M-disc would be a great deal it has 1000yrs of lifespan this would be a nice option if one of your grandchildren is your heir of this backup for future holdings and to later heirs(for new generations). It's not so expensive it's around $80

For long term storage, I trust paper much more than anything digital. My solution for Bitcoin Core's wallet.dat is only to keep it as a hot wallet, and don't keep much in it. I have backups too of course (on external HDD and USB stick), and regularly make new backups (even though that's not necessary, it's part of my normal backup routine).

[DireWolfM14]

Cd/DVD discs are enough for me to hold my coins for the long term.

I have had many CDRs that were useless after a few years. Some are still okay, but I'll always asume they won't last.

The archival ones are bound to last longer, maybe even 100s of years due to being built with silver.  Unfortunately, it's still speculation.  The longevity of the disk isn't the only consideration, one also needs the reader.  I've never had a reader/writer last over 10 or so years, and since they sit unused most of the time it'll be when you need it immediately that you'll realized it has stopped working.  Imagine 20 or 30 years from now, how little demand there will be for optical disks, which means higher prices for reading hardware.  Possibly making it very expensive just to read your archives.

For long term storage, I trust paper much more than anything digital. My solution for Bitcoin Core's wallet.dat is only to keep it as a hot wallet, and don't keep much in it. I have backups too of course (on external HDD and USB stick), and regularly make new backups (even though that's not necessary, it's part of my normal backup routine).

I agree with you about the paper and using core as a hot wallet.  Even though you can use the hdseed to back up the wallet, I would want it on paper and I've yet to see it as worth the trouble/potential risk.  I'm much more likely to make a mistake while transferring an hdseed to paper than I am if transferring 24 common words.