Multibit-HD questions

[japerry]

Hello Everyone!

I've been remiss in testing the new MultiBit-HD Beta..I just downloaded version 0.0.7 and it looks pretty slick! But I do have some questions.

1. I just created the default wallet. Unless I'm really missing something I don't see a way to create additional wallets. I'd like to create a second wallet that is "Watch Only" so I can use it to backup my hot wallet.

2. Referring back to question 1 is there a way to create a "Watch Only" wallet under the new beta?

3. If I created a receive address using a service like BitAddress or other service is there a way to "import" the contents of that address into MultiBit-HD? If that's possible then I could just use that address as a "Watch Only" address.

4. Lastly, can MultiBit-HD be installed in "portable mode" so I can run it off a thumb drive if need be?

My apologies if the questions are answered elsewhere. Just send me the URL and I'll go do the reading.

[jim618]

If you click on the 'Restore' button on the Password screen there is an option to create a new wallet.
Just select that one and you start up the Create New Wallet Wizard.

We have not put in pure watch only wallets in HD, mainly to keep things simple for newbies. For people not really familiar with bitcoin the idea of having a wallet where the 'money is not there' is too confusing.

In MBHD there are a total 3 sorts of wallets:

+ HD wallets, BIP 32 compatible (Account 1 only), the private keys are stored encrypted on the machine.
+ Trezor wallets, BIP 44, (Account 1) the private keys are stored on the Trezor
+ Trezor compatible 'soft' wallets. These are BIP 44 (Account 1) but have the private keys stored on the device. These are primarily for recovery of your bitcoins if you lose your Trezor.

We only support the 'Account 1' (in myTrezor.com parlance) due to limitations of how we bloom filter the incoming transaction data.

You can do a restore from your wallet words/ seed phrase so you can re-create a BIP32 or BIP44 wallet. Click Restore on the Password entry screen and then choose the Restore wallet option.

You cannot import a single private key/ address with MBHD no. Being able to recover all your bitcoins from 12/18/24 words is such a win we wanted to keep that functionality - importing individual private keys breaks that.

RE: portable mode. We don't advertise the feature but yes you can run it in portable mode the same as MultiBit Classic. Put everything that is stored in the user directory in the installation dir and it will pick it up
We don't advertise this feature as we know that inevitably people will lose their USB drives (and have no backup set). Then they will email us to ask us to recover their bitcoins. If they don't have their wallet words they just lost their bitcoins and we cannot do anything to help them. We don't want this to happen hence don't really advertise this feature.

[japerry]

If you click on the 'Restore' button on the Password screen there is an option to create a new wallet.
Just select that one and you start up the Create New Wallet Wizard.

... (some quoted text deleted for brevity)

Hello Jim,

Thanks for the concise answers! They were very informative. I'll continue to test MultiBit-HD and let you know if I run into any issues.

[jim618]

Great thanks !

Anything you spot that is 'not quite right' is worth mentioning. Gary is working on the payment protocol work and I am concentrating on clearing out all of the general UI issues and finishing things off.