Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Heteroplasmy on January 16, 2013, 04:39 am

Title: In order to backup my BTC address......
Post by: Heteroplasmy on January 16, 2013, 04:39 am
.....Can I just create a wallet at blockchain.info and use the Bitcoin address that says that you can share the BTC address with anyone and that they can send you payments?

Is this a better way to store bitcoins than on SR's wallet (I'm guessing that is an obvious YES)?

Is there a better Bitcoin address that I can put as my backup BTC address?

Thanks,
Heteroplasmy

P.S. I am a newb, please bare with me!!

EDIT: On blockchain.info, it says "Backup your bitcoin wallet using dropbox. It's free, easy to use and secure."

What does that even mean? I thouught that having a BTC wallet on blockchain.info was enough of a backup wallet to your SR wallet?

Someone please explain the simple facts of BTC to me... I obviously need it
Title: Re: In order to backup my BTC address......
Post by: acider on January 16, 2013, 12:54 pm
Do not store btc in SR. If one day SR disappears/gets compromised you ll lose your money.
Download a btc client ,bitcoin-qt, electrum, multibit are some of the most used. I recommend electrum and write down the seed (a few random looking words) or save it in text, encrypted and in a different disk/usb device so you can create the wallet again if something goes wrong.
Title: Re: In order to backup my BTC address......
Post by: nanpa2001 on January 16, 2013, 01:25 pm
If you are a beginner, use http://electrum.org/

That will sort you out if you ever have a tech disaster.
Title: Re: In order to backup my BTC address......
Post by: Heteroplasmy on January 17, 2013, 09:00 pm
If you are a beginner, use http://electrum.org/

That will sort you out if you ever have a tech disaster.

Can you kind of help guide me a little bit? blockchain.info was real easy to sign up for... is the backup BTC address they gave me not a good one to use? Why should I use electrum? It looks complicated from first glance.
Title: Re: In order to backup my BTC address......
Post by: HarryJohnson on January 18, 2013, 01:15 am
If you are a beginner, use http://electrum.org/

That will sort you out if you ever have a tech disaster.

Can you kind of help guide me a little bit? blockchain.info was real easy to sign up for... is the backup BTC address they gave me not a good one to use? Why should I use electrum? It looks complicated from first glance.

Blockchain is just another online bitcoin wallet place. Nothing special. I have a wallet there, but there is nothing in it. I have a wallet there just in case one day I need an empty wallet. They do allow you to backup your wallet offline, which is cool. So they are basically holding your bitcoins in a wallet on their servers. What I suggest is the original bitcoin local wallet from bitcoin.org. That wallet is local, on your computer in the wallet.dat file. You can backup that wallet/file to anywhere you want. Throw it on your drop box account, throw it on your google drive account. Save it on a USB stick. You have all the control using a local program on your computer. Why someone would prefer an online wallet over the local wallet? Maybe they travel alot. Maybe they can't access that computer all the time. Maybe they don't even have a computer and use public computers. Lots of reasons, but if you have your own computer I suggest using the bitcoin.org wallet program on your local computer. You can have as many addresses as you like with that program as well. Now, there are other programs that allow you to have a local wallet on your computer that have fancy interfaces, colorful buttons, just different stuff. I just prefer the basic, plain, local bitcoin.org wallet program. And then I backup my wallet.dat file to my cloud storage on dropbox or where ever.

Title: Re: In order to backup my BTC address......
Post by: Heteroplasmy on January 18, 2013, 11:55 am
If you are a beginner, use http://electrum.org/

That will sort you out if you ever have a tech disaster.

Can you kind of help guide me a little bit? blockchain.info was real easy to sign up for... is the backup BTC address they gave me not a good one to use? Why should I use electrum? It looks complicated from first glance.

Blockchain is just another online bitcoin wallet place. Nothing special. I have a wallet there, but there is nothing in it. I have a wallet there just in case one day I need an empty wallet. They do allow you to backup your wallet offline, which is cool. So they are basically holding your bitcoins in a wallet on their servers. What I suggest is the original bitcoin local wallet from bitcoin.org. That wallet is local, on your computer in the wallet.dat file. You can backup that wallet/file to anywhere you want. Throw it on your drop box account, throw it on your google drive account. Save it on a USB stick. You have all the control using a local program on your computer. Why someone would prefer an online wallet over the local wallet? Maybe they travel alot. Maybe they can't access that computer all the time. Maybe they don't even have a computer and use public computers. Lots of reasons, but if you have your own computer I suggest using the bitcoin.org wallet program on your local computer. You can have as many addresses as you like with that program as well. Now, there are other programs that allow you to have a local wallet on your computer that have fancy interfaces, colorful buttons, just different stuff. I just prefer the basic, plain, local bitcoin.org wallet program. And then I backup my wallet.dat file to my cloud storage on dropbox or where ever.

Someone is going to need to explain what all this wallet.dat stuff even means.. I have trried searching and I can't find anything conclusive on the subject matter. I would love my own local USB WALLET separate from the internet which can be compromised at any second.. I'll store it a local sky drive and a USB stick. Do you mind just cliff noting me on how to get this done? Sorry to bug you if I have annoyed you. I just want to finally have a secure resting place for my BTC.