How does a payment get to me?

richardw (OP)

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How does a payment get to me?

May 08, 2011, 05:47:29 PM

I sent my own desktop wallet some Bitcoin from my mtGox account. It's been over 8 hours and I haven't seen anything. NBD, but it does add an element of excitement that isn't there with my normal bank account

So, a couple questions:
How would my bitcoin client know that the address it manages got paid, say, a month ago? Are all transactions going to be stored indefinitely out there in the ether?
How possible is it that a set of transactions could get 'lost'?

Since it's all distributed, the transactions have to find some way of getting to me from the origin nodes. Is there a routing mechanism that will guarantee that 'eventually' I'll get my payment?

Cheers,
Richard

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casascius

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Re: How does a payment get to me?

May 08, 2011, 05:59:12 PM

When you send money from MtGox to the downloaded client, the transaction usually shows up instantly.

If it doesn't, then you may not yet have the entire block chain downloaded. The transaction record you've mentioned is in the block chain - your transaction will specifically be in one of the recent blocks.

How many blocks does your client show it has downloaded? Also, you may consider going to blockexplorer.com and typing in the destination bitcoin address to see if the public record of the transaction exists and which block it's in.

Companies claiming they got hacked and lost your coins sounds like fraud so perfect it could be called fashionable. I never believe them. If I ever experience the misfortune of a real intrusion, I declare I have been honest about the way I have managed the keys in Casascius Coins. I maintain no ability to recover or reproduce the keys, not even under limitless duress or total intrusion. Remember that trusting strangers with your coins without any recourse is, as a matter of principle, not a best practice. Don't keep coins online. Use paper or hardware wallets instead.

richardw (OP)

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Re: How does a payment get to me?

May 08, 2011, 06:05:09 PM

Thanks, casascius - the possibility kinda dawned on me a short while after sending. I have 109k, and I see bitcoincharts says there are 120-ish-k blocks out there. So...I wait a short while and it should be here.

I kinda assumed there wasn't a full set, that maybe each sub-network could have trades the rest weren't aware of. Time to read some more, I guess.

Cheers,
Richard

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