A piece of advice from Satoshi that you shouldn’t ignore

[Zoomic]

Every piece of advice Satoshi gave are still very much relevant till date so it's important to put them all in practice as a Bitcoiner.

On his advice against deleting a wallet, is not really about the wallet itself but the private keys to the wallet.

One can delete a wallet app now and still decide to recover it anytime in the future they still have the private keys.

So basically, he's saying that you shouldn't lose your wallet's backup so it can remain recoverable for you to access it whenever you want. Satoshi isn't just saying "don't delete your wallet", he's saying "don't lose access to your wallet"

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I’d like to know, do you also realize that this advice is very important to know or even to always follow?

Most of his advices were just simple and clear so we don't have to read too much meaning into them before we start confusing ourselves and making thongs that weren't suppose to be complicated become so. Don't delete your wallet because you might need it someday even though you think you won't ever need it. If you delete, always keep the seed phrase, this mightn't mean much but I think I have read about BTC address being airdropped tokens to old sitcom addresses. This has nothing to do with Bitcoin but that's just some free money that you could've benefited from if you still had access to your old wallets. Not saying this was the reason why he gave that advice but there's no harm instead more positive in having our old wallets still accessable to us.

[Obari]

The idea of not deleting old wallets is truly the best because why delete a wallet when you can just move it aside and get a new one maybe if you don't find a use for the old one any longer and I could remember one certain time I participated in an airdrop that took over a year before it got distributed and back then I had to delete my binance app because I felt there was no use for it since I already had trust wallet and I didn't want to trade my coins because I wanted to hold but unfortunately the coin was distributed and sent to my Binance account but the good news was that it didn't require a passphrase but just logging in with my email and password which was my saving grace else I would have lost that $30 as at then and that was when it occurred to me that every wallet address is important.

I’d like to know, do you also realize that this advice is very important to know or even to always follow?

Most of his advices were just simple and clear so we don't have to read too much meaning into them before we start confusing ourselves and making thongs that weren't suppose to be complicated become so.

Exactly and the few of the message I've seen from satoshi doesn't need any critical thinking to understand them and I don't know why I think more of satoshi as a simple man and an I think I will have to take his writings more serious.

[macson]

I didn't know that Satoshi's sentence, which is so simple, could be interpreted in such a long way, like you're interpreting a prophet's words lol.

But it should be simple. We never know when we'll need those wallets. Maybe right now they're not that useful, but what about in the future? So it's good to keep the keys, especially when it's not that complicated.

[Hamza2424]

There is someone that is very close to me that someone sent USDT to, he later did not use the wallet to be receiving cryptocurrencies so he deleted it. After many months have passed the person sent USDT to the same address and called him that he sent USDT to the address.

The person that sent the USDT was at fault but if he has not deleted the wallet, he would have still helped the person to recover the coin.

When he told me about this and he posted about it on this forum without seeing any solution, I know that I should not delete any wallet unless I have not sent any coins to the wallet and I have not given the wallet address to anyone.

Hmm hmm.

Bro, even if he had deleted the wallet, did he not save the recovery? The seed phrase could have helped your friend in recovering the wallet. He was using USDT, so it was not a dat file.

I also once created a wallet, deposited some funds in it, and forgot to secure the seed phrase. My browser, while updating, deleted and reinstalled every wallet, including it, and I lost that wallet. But then after researching, I found HW, which means the wallet that I fortunately created was a child account of another wallet. So I had the seed of the main wallet in which I created another account, and this is how I recovered my funds.

[Churchillvv]

There's soooo much info from him with deeper meaning than simply "never delete a wallet" (though if u look through his messages they sound pretty straightforward, idk if he meant any of them to have a deeper meaning)

He didn’t mean any complexity in this statement all one needs to do is read the whole of the statement and the beginning of the thread to a deeper level so you can get the whole idea behind the statement but however op just heard a little part of it. Now if you had a wallet with bitcoin in it you might have moved all the coins but still have the wallet kept for future purposes which could be a mistake transaction to your old wallet but it may not even happen but it cost nothing to keep the details as usual.

[Asiska02]

Some people randomly donate Bitcoin to address when they see contributions of work they found valuable, even till  now some people still donate to some address. Imagine having multiple donations to address without private keys, you have wasted the Bitcoin and the effort of people that donated.

This is indeed something to take more serious and the Satoshi words about not deleting an old wallet truly has its own reason, even beyond what you just explained here. Some addresses are out there with lots of Bitcoin untouched, this definitely will be the resultant of throwing away the private keys and not holding onto their old wallets. This wallets holds even more value than the new ones in relation since the old one is best known for earlier contributions to the bitcoin technology which anyone can appreciate you for through donations. It is not hard, you don’t lose anything by keeping your old wallet safe and still accessible even in the future.

[Alpha Marine]

You don't need to be a genius to understand this, though. Somebody can send BTC to an address you have used previously, and if you no longer have access to that address, the address is gone.
This may not happen often, but it happens. I always ask if I should use the same address when sending Bitcoin just to be sure the address is still in use. Even when I'm sending money to people, I don't send regularly, I ask them if it's the same account as last time I should send it to.
I don't think I have all the addresses I've ever owned or used, but I have their seed phrases somewhere so if I ever need to gain access to them, it wouldn't be a problem.

[promise444c5]

TL;DR just save and never dispose the backup of any  wallet you copied it address..

It so simple, the moment you copy that address, it means you’re using it for something that can be needed in future if not now .  Although, not every copied address means the wallet is useful.. I can copy  and make use of the address for some random test or I may not even copy any of the adress, just create multiple wallets for test.. definitely don’t need to save such wallets because they unnecessary add to the list  backups of backups that need to be “watched” .

[Ucy]

That's basically for those who run a node rather than the typical non-node ordinary wallets. And it probably won't be necessary not to delete (as long as you have a back up of your keys) since what caused the unconfirmed transaction, which is part of the reasons Satoshi made that comment, has been fixed with the new update

[Filicius]

I had never read that comment of Satoshi but anyway for those of us who have been around for a while it seems an obvious advice, and although I did not know his words I apply it to myself in most cases. Saving some seeds does not hurt in any case.

I have always thought that if at some point a fork was made retroactively, I could regret having deleted some wallets, and that is why I keep them, but the argument of receiving new transactions in old addresses by mistake or recklessness of the sender is as good or better than this one, or at least, more likely to happen.

[gracreavix]

Protect your wallet when nothing is inside? I think he is referring to your Bitcoin In your Wallet. Lossing just your wallet when no Bitcoin is inside is not such a big deal. Satashi was definitely referring to something else. A wallet is just a wallet until something enters it then it becomes valuable. What if satoshi was pointing out another thing while staying a different thing to paint a scenario.

[hd49728]

Protect your wallet when nothing is inside?

Your old wallet was empty when you stopped using it but later maybe someone will send bitcoins to that wallet.
You also can use your Bitcoin old wallets for claiming Bitcoin forks.
Maybe there are other reasons I don't know yet.

I think he is referring to your Bitcoin In your Wallet. Lossing just your wallet when no Bitcoin is inside is not such a big deal.

It's still a big deal if you need your Bitcoin wallets for signing a Bitcoin message from one of these old addresses and private keys, to prove that you are still the same person.

It's applicable for every where but in this forum, it can be used for account recovery.
How to sign a message?!
Stake your Bitcoin address here.
Recovering hacked/ lost accounts.

It does not cost you more to save your old wallets so why don't do that.

[The Founding Titan]

Satoshi once advised against deleting a wallet for any reason. And he also suggested keeping or even copying the keys just in case. I personally think that Satoshi believed that a wallet you no longer use might be needed at some point in the future. Perhaps Satoshi was very serious in making that suggestion. And I’m sure he didn’t want anything bad to happen to someone who had deleted their wallet, where it could lead to disappointment. Satoshi’s message shouldn’t be taken lightly by anyone because you never know what the future holds so you need to follow his advice. I found myself pondering for a moment when I read Satoshi’s message. And I think Satoshi’s words carry a lot of meaning if you think about them further. But he made his words so simple by just a few words. I’m sure Satoshi is someone with cognitive efficiency which is why he’s able to make complex things seem simple. And that’s just like the idea or even the vision behind Bitcoin which he created with the goal of making things easier for everyone even though there are complex technical aspects behind it.

(Source)

I’d like to know, do you also realize that this advice is very important to know or even to always follow?

Better to just quote the whole thing right?

ArtForz is already running with no fees, and he has 20-30% of the network's CPU power. The person who originally sent the broken transactions deleted his wallet, though, and the network has forgotten these historical transactions, so any transactions based on this won't confirm.

Transactions aren't accepted or displayed as 0/unconfirmed until your node has a path of transactions back to the block chain.

Any transactions in your wallet also have bundled with them all unrecorded transactions required to reach the block chain.  If you have a transaction that is displayed as 0/unconfirmed, then you have all the previous unrecorded transactions it depends on and you will also rebroadcast those transactions when you rebroadcast yours.

If a no-fee block has already been generated and hasn't helped, then I need to look at what's wrong.  It's a part of code that doesn't get much use.  They should be recorded in the wallets of everyone who has a transaction depending on them.

The person who originally sent the broken transactions deleted his wallet

Sigh... why delete a wallet instead of moving it aside and keeping the old copy just in case?  You should never delete a wallet.

It's running. Should find a block within 3 hours.

It may take a while to collect re-broadcast transactions.  It'll help if you can accept inbound connections so you'll be listening to more nodes.  Even if you find a block in 3 hours, keep it running continuously for a few days at least.

[d5000]

I disagree (a little bit) with satoshi

I think there are a few valid reasons where you could want to delete a wallet (keys/seedphrase).

First, if you never re-used addresses, you haven't shared addresses of this wallet with other people, and have thouroughly checked that your wallet was 100% empty for a year or so then there is imo no reason to _not_ delete it.

The reasons why deleting such old wallets may not be a bad idea include:

1) if you open it accidentally, you could leak information about you. For example, if you have an Electrum wallet from 2012/13, and are checking all your wallets on an old device, connecting to the Internet. Electrum servers are often run by chain analysis companies, or by other people doing chain analysis even for worse reasons (to sell them to criminals for good targets for $5 wrench attacks for example). If you are not using Tor and the device is on the same home network (router) than the device with the main wallet, then your IP address tells the chain analysis guys that you owned Bitcoins in 2012/13, making you a possible target.

2) if a thief finds your seedphrases and sees you had an old wallet, then he could assume that you are richer than it seems - and plan a even bigger heist.

3) if you want to delete evidence about old transactions for privacy reasons, for example to prevent curious family members to check old crypto transactions.

So I think this can't be 100% generalized.


(edited the post because the recommendation to keep backups if you shared addresses is important.)

[Peanutswar]

Well basically if you wanted to make a disposable wallet or let's say common term right now is we are now using with the burner wallet you dont need to let go your wallet all the time because right now we are now using a feature of UTXO which this prevents to trace the users new funding address, so basically we are now in the new era people now using the same wallet since then and use a burner wallet nowadays. Its quite a bit hassle right now if ive been doing a deletion of wallet every time I access this to my device and recover if you wanted to make a transaction.

[Johnlomape]

Satoshi once advised against deleting a wallet for any reason. And he also suggested keeping or even copying the keys just in case. I personally think that Satoshi believed that a wallet you no longer use might be needed at some point in the future. Perhaps Satoshi was very serious in making that suggestion. And I’m sure he didn’t want anything bad to happen to someone who had deleted their wallet, where it could lead to disappointment. Satoshi’s message shouldn’t be taken lightly by anyone because you never know what the future holds so you need to follow his advice. I found myself pondering for a moment when I read Satoshi’s message. And I think Satoshi’s words carry a lot of meaning if you think about them further. But he made his words so simple by just a few words. I’m sure Satoshi is someone with cognitive efficiency which is why he’s able to make complex things seem simple. And that’s just like the idea or even the vision behind Bitcoin which he created with the goal of making things easier for everyone even though there are complex technical aspects behind it.

(Source)

I’d like to know, do you also realize that this advice is very important to know or even to always follow?

I don't know what the consequences of deleting a wallet in the future will be like but I don't think it should put us in serious and unfortunate situation. It is wise for users to keep their wallet seed phrases because their are often chances of the wallet having some unsendable tiny Bitcoin in it that can worth a big amount in the future. This must have happened to few persons until they realize what such money has grown into within a long period of time. It is a good practice for Bitcoin holders including traders to keep their wallet safe even if it doesn't have any significant amount in it.

[UchihaSarada]

I don't know what the consequences of deleting a wallet in the future will be like but I don't think it should put us in serious and unfortunate situation.

If you care about your forum account, you will need to consider of signing a Bitcoin message, staking it and your Bitcoin address in this forum. It can be helpful for your account recovery in the future if you lost your account password, lost your email access or if you use a dummy email address so that you can not recover your account by password reset via email.

I am not sure but having access to your old wallets can be helpful for your tax reports in the future too, if the tax authority ask some evidence of past transactions from you.

[Lida93]

I disagree (a little bit) with satoshi

I think there are a few valid reasons where you could want to delete a wallet (keys/seedphrase).

First, if you never re-used addresses, and have thouroughly checked that your wallet was 100% empty for a year or so then there is imo no reason to _not_ delete it.

The reasons why deleting such old wallets may not be a bad idea include:

1) if you open it accidentally, you could leak information about you. For example, if you have an Electrum wallet from 2012/13, and are checking all your wallets on an old device, connecting to the Internet. Electrum servers are often run by chain analysis companies, or by other people doing chain analysis even for worse reasons (to sell them to criminals for good targets for $5 wrench attacks for example). If you are not using Tor and the device is on the same home network (router) than the device with the main wallet, then your IP address tells the chain analysis guys that you owned Bitcoins in 2012/13, making you a possible target.

2) if a thief finds your seedphrases and sees you had an old wallet, then he could assume that you are richer than it seems - and plan a even bigger heist.

3) if you want to delete evidence about old transactions for privacy reasons, for example to prevent curious family members to check old crypto transactions.

So I think this can't be 100% generalized.

You made a strong stand here. Satoshi may have being a smart guy but he just can't be perfect in all things despite giving us one of the greatest asset. He may not be wrong with his reasons but I do believe he didn't thought about a lot of other possible situations in the future which could warrant the deleting of one's own wallet as the best option for ones safety and prevention of mistakes in the future that could lead to exposure of a user's identity through a previous marked  wallet linking a newly created one which was purposely to erase traces through some old wallet.

[Cricktor]

...

It's a bit baffling that so far just one user named the main reason of Satoshi's recommendation, namely that first standard Bitcoin client wallets were a collection of completely unrelated random private keys. No determinism of private keys as today's common HD wallets offer. You loose or discard every file(!) copy of such a wallet and all keys are basically gone forever for you, no chance of recovery whatsoever.

OK, fine, I don't expect too many people to be sort of Bitcoin historians (I'm not one, by any means). I happened to have some recovery issues with a wallet from the era of 2011, no coins were harmed or lost. Therefore I learned a thing or two about old wallets.

I would actually extend Satoshi's recommendation to newer HD wallets, too. In my opinion there're not many strong arguments to completely discard all backups of such a wallet (mnemonic recovery words, optional mnemonic passphrase, maybe "special" derivation path trickery and whatnotelse is needed to fully recover such a particular wallet), when you emptied this wallet and don't intend to use it anymore. (Yes, I read what d5000 wrote and don't quite agree with his reasons.)

Keep a redundant backup and maybe simply lower the security of your "abandoned backups" when the wallet is empty anyway. You might not need to hide as good as your secure backup of your live and funded wallet(s). It doesn't really hurt to keep every wallet you ever created. You never know if and when you may need any of your backups!