New, simple online wallet: www.instawallet.org - no signup required

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This is a simply problem that should have a simple fix.

The URL https://instawallet.org should be set up as a landing page, populate with simple content and one button. Upon clicking the button, the familiar page, or similar, we now see would then appear showcasing the new wallet with 0 bitcoins, whereupon the newly generated URL will be the address of the user's new online wallet.

Currently, as it is set up now, there is no instawallet.org page one can visit. This simple change would take very little effort.

Problem solved!

~Bruno K~

The problem is not the experienced user but the noob. You could still trick a noob into believing that

<a href=instawallet.org/w/myAddressBook43>instawallet.org/referrer/Giszmo</a>

is a referral link.

Valid point! Then on the landing page I mentioned above, a popup warning box appears that has to be manually ticked (If you don't want to see this box again from this IP, click this box and exit). In fact, besides just the landing page, ANY page generated for the first time visitor via a unique IP.

I'm sure the above should eliminate a high percentage of the scams. Hell, there are people still being spoofed by fake PayPal sites, and I'm sure they're throwing everything in their arsenal to combat the problem.

[VEscudero]

Another software glitch?

It seems instawallet bitcoin daemon has died, all in & out transactions are not reflected in instawallet addresses.

[HighInBC]

I have the same problem, I sent money to an instawallet and even though the transaction is confirmed there is nothing showing up in instawallet.

Really annoying.

[HighInBC]

I am amazed that more people are not reporting this, I wonder if it is isolated.

[davout]

I'll keep it short :
 - It's not isolated, other users are affected
 - I'm working on it
 - No funds were lost, it's not a hack,
 - It'll probably take another hour before affected users can access their funds

[ksteve96]

Everyone stop panicking, it's back

[davout]

It should now be fully fixed.

What happened is that for a few hours the backend was talking to the wrong bitcoind.

That's purely my fault, I messed up a configuration setting during the course of a routine maintenance.

Wallets created against this Bitcoin client will have to be discarded as their private key is unknown to the main Bitcoin client. Therefore it won't notify incoming transactions properly, affected wallets will fail to see their balance properly updated.

At this point their balance should be correct though, I fixed it so affected users can move their funds to another instawallet or to any arbitrary address.

If funds are still accidentally sent to an affected wallet they will have to be accounted for manually.

I apologize for the inconvenience to all affected users.

[HighInBC]

You rock! I got the money back now.

[ianspain]

It should now be fully fixed.

What happened is that for a few hours the backend was talking to the wrong bitcoind.

That's purely my fault, I messed up a configuration setting during the course of a routine maintenance.

Wallets created against this Bitcoin client will have to be discarded as their private key is unknown to the main Bitcoin client. Therefore it won't notify incoming transactions properly, affected wallets will fail to see their balance properly updated.

At this point their balance should be correct though, I fixed it so affected users can move their funds to another instawallet or to any arbitrary address.

If funds are still accidentally sent to an affected wallet they will have to be accounted for manually.

I apologize for the inconvenience to all affected users.

sent PM

[giszmo]

If funds are still accidentally sent to an affected wallet they will have to be accounted for manually.

can't you just move the priv keys to the other wallet? should be about 1020 minutes of work.

[davout]

If funds are still accidentally sent to an affected wallet they will have to be accounted for manually.

can't you just move the priv keys to the other wallet? should be about 1020 minutes of work.

Rescanning the chain against a very large wallet takes a very long time, a long time you have to multiply by the number of keys to import.
Quite a long time during which Instawallet has to be put into maintenance mode.

[giszmo]

If funds are still accidentally sent to an affected wallet they will have to be accounted for manually.

can't you just move the priv keys to the other wallet? should be about 1020 minutes of work.

Rescanning the chain against a very large wallet takes a very long time, a long time you have to multiply by the number of keys to import.
Quite a long time during which Instawallet has to be put into maintenance mode.

Well, yeah, then thank you that (coincident?) even I already got a customer who claimed I didn't pay him and I could bet I actually did pay him to one of your broken wallets. Wanna take the bet? I will tell you the receiving address and trust you to not lie about it being one of your funny wallets or not.

Maybe you should start running two wallets anyway? Yes, it's nasty to have to pay transaction fees for instawallet to instawallet transactions but it's also nasty to have broken wallets, sorry.

At least I hope you have a BIG warning in the broken instawallets.

[davout]

Well, yeah, then thank you that (coincident?) even I already got a customer who claimed I didn't pay him and I could bet I actually did pay him to one of your broken wallets. Wanna take the bet? I will tell you the receiving address and trust you to not lie about it being one of your funny wallets or not.

The few affected wallets display a big red warning, but if you don't have access to this wallet and only the URL sure, send the address and I'll tell you if it's one of them.

Maybe you should start running two wallets anyway? Yes, it's nasty to have to pay transaction fees for instawallet to instawallet transactions but it's also nasty to have broken wallets, sorry.

Well, actually the best solution would be to have one single wallet with tools to efficiently clean it from time to time.

At least I hope you have a BIG warning in the broken instawallets.

Yep, and it's red too.

[giszmo]

Well, yeah, then thank you that (coincident?) even I already got a customer who claimed I didn't pay him and I could bet I actually did pay him to one of your broken wallets. Wanna take the bet? I will tell you the receiving address and trust you to not lie about it being one of your funny wallets or not.

The few affected wallets display a big red warning, but if you don't have access to this wallet and only the URL sure, send the address and I'll tell you if it's one of them.

Thanx for looking it up. So it wasn't instawallet. Sorry for the false accusations

3,418,941 wallets

Wow! Impressive
Ever considered making this a life-counter or a fake-life counter? When loading an instawallet, the 24h average creation rate of wallets could be used to fake the counter with some randomness to give the user more a feel for how much 3.4 million actually is in that short amount of time.

[HighInBC]

Is there another issue related to the fork? I sent some coins into instawallet and they are not showing up.

[HighInBC]

Is there another issue related to the fork? I sent some coins into instawallet and they are not showing up.

They seemed to have fixed it, got my coins back.

[Mjbmonetarymetals]

Any plans for a Litecoin version of instawallet ?

[davout]

Any plans for a Litecoin version of instawallet ?

Why not, I don't know much about litecoin at all though. Way too busy with Bitcoin
Is it getting very popular ?

[JonSnow]

Sent 40 btc from my instawallet this evening in 2 transactions and neither transaction has shown up on blockchain ...

[yodog]

I sent 52.39 btc from one instawallet to another one and the coins did not show up. From the block chain the new instawallet address isn't showing up(unused) and the 52.39 btc are showing up as unspent   

http://blockchain.info/unspent?active=17iQhdkNpoxYcNNcXodPjTWUqSuTC8XaF4&format=html


I'm assuming that there is an issue in your backend and the coins will be returned ?? or what is the plan to remedy this situation? as 52.39 btc is over 2600$!!