Bitcoins

csm888

Satoshi wrote: »

I must admit I still do not understand how offline bitcoin could work? How do you know someone is not just making up they have bitcoins when they dont have them?

Are you talking about the new dark wallet? But even that needs internet to record transactions.

You can send Bitcoin to a bitcoin address, it looks something like this
1LPKvkcgiDxbiLAPU3BFjPY8bnStBKMf24
For Bitcoin it always starts with a 1
This is all you need to store coins. If you give an address such as this to someone, they can send Bitcoins to it. This transfer is recorded on the blockchain, and you don't need a wallet to receive this money, it just lives in that address on the block chain.

When you want to spend money in that address you need the private key, this looks something like
5JPQj1mrTk7H5HqBj2XATDYKVuWC3HhWA9qKQhpLXMTN362whmH
There are different formats to the private key, but in this format they all start with a 5.
The Bitcoin address is derived from this private key.

A Bitcoin client can then use this private key to create a transaction to move money out of the address.
If someone if making up the number of bitcoins they believe are in the address the blockchain will reject the transaction. The block chain is a ledger of all transactions, and therefore stores the quantities of coins in all the bitcoin addresses ever used.


To create an Offline Wallet.

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The easiest way to create an offline paper wallet is something like this:
On a machine thats been virus scanned (preferably linux or mac) goto:
https://www.bitaddress.org/

Disconnect your internet connection, then using the paper wallet tab on this site create a number of paper wallets, and print out a few copies of each wallet.

Clear the browsers cache and history, reboot the computer and then re-connect to the internet.

Now you can send your coins to the Bitcoin addresses you created.

I use
http://blockchain.info
This allows you to scan the QR code part of the paper wallet's Bitcoin Address (left hand side)
If you ever want to spend the bitcoin scan in Private Key (the right hand side)

Warning: Do no scan the "Private Key" until you want to spend the coins, once you have scanned in the private key, send the Bitcoins where ever you want and any remaining change to a new unused paper wallet address.

Treat the paper wallet like cash, if it falls into the wrong hands all the contents can be stolen, perhaps you could use a safe.

Practice the whole process creating, sending bitcoins to, and retrieving Bitcoins from a wallet with a tiny amount of coins to make sure you know what you are doing, before committing to a lot of money.

The best way to create offline wallets is probably using Armory in offline mode, its a little more complex but higher security.

Satoshi

Thanks so that does require internet? You can not transact privately in an underground car park without internet? You can not exchange bitcoins 100% privately with no trail?

csm888

Satoshi wrote: »

Thanks so that does require internet? You can not transact privately in an underground car park without internet? You can not exchange bitcoins 100% privately with no trail?

You need internet to publish transactions to the blockchain

sabretoothtigger

They could always just pass the ownership of the bitcoin key from one person to the next.
This does not have to be verified with the blockchain because the chain doesnt care about location or who is holding it. So no internet but the person taking the wallet would need some trust to do so I guess - there are actual coins supposedly holding unspent btc to be used like that.

If you are really leaving the net behind you could set up 100 wallets and each time you spend the wallet by passing on ownership of its contents by whatever means. If its a personal wallet then give the electronics holding that, could be a usb key. Or online you'd give the username password.

Of course either can be taken by force but all valuables suffer from that

http://www.bitcointrezor.com/?ref=pool
This is portable btc but its splitting the coins from the wallet so not like my idea above. You could just hand the entire thing to someone

padington

Anyone trust https://bittylicious.com or managed to get the damn thing to work ?

hander

padington wrote: »

Anyone trust https://bittylicious.com or managed to get the damn thing to work ?

At their prices, why would you bother?

markj113

padington wrote: »

Anyone trust https://bittylicious.com or managed to get the damn thing to work ?

To buy bitcoins use -

https://bitbargain.co.uk/buy

For a safe secure wallet try Armory,

You can create multiple wallets so you can have a hot wallet for daily use and a cold offline wallet for security to keep your stash

Satoshi

the 'market cap' of bitcoin is currently $ 9,379,980,244

the price of silver $19.83

in theory approx 473,019,679 oz's of silver could be bought with the purchasing power of bitcoin - or indeed could've been bought.

hysteria or trap, or both?

Good debate here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFcTJAQ7zc4

Peter schiff makes a good point about 10mins in, if lots of the bitcoin millionaires who bought lots before they went up so much decided to cash out, would there be enough buyers to put all those units of fiat currency into bitcoin?

hander

markj113 wrote: »

To buy bitcoins use -

https://bitbargain.co.uk/buy

For a safe secure wallet try Armory,

You can create multiple wallets so you can have a hot wallet for daily use and a cold offline wallet for security to keep your stash

I would say localbitcoins.com is often more reasonable... (over 70% of the time in my experience).

Also I would say that electrum is friendlier for people new to software wallets - and offers its recovery 'seed' which can be a lifesaver.

markj113

hander wrote: »

I would say localbitcoins.com is often more reasonable... (over 70% of the time in my experience).

Also I would say that electrum is friendlier for people new to software wallets - and offers its recovery 'seed' which can be a lifesaver.

havent tried that one, armory also allows you to create a digital and paper backup of your wallet.