The transactions are in the block chain, but the key to make new transactions are in the wallet.dat.
That being said, I dont see how any bitcoins were lost given the example in the post. When the wallet from the flash drive was restored, he should have access to the coins again.
Perhaps by spending the coin you put your backup copy of the wallet in a state where it disagrees with "the network". In which case he's making a very important point: backups are not enough, they have to be realtime synchronized backups.
Your key pairs are still valid, though, and they're in the backed up wallet. If those 9k were purchased and a few confirmations were achieved, then everyone with the current block chain will recognize your keys.
That the client is problematic doesn't mean the data/$ is gone.
Except he doesn't have the keys, because the transaction generated a new keypair for the remainder left post-transaction. The new key didn't get backed up because it didn't exist at the time of the last backup.
Absolutely correct. There is no way you can lose your Bitcoins as long as you have a backup of your wallet. The only way to lose Bitcoins is to:
A. Send them to someone else, which will create a new block in the chain that is confirmed by miners.
B. Lose your wallet.dat completely and therefore your private keys forfeiting any way to access BTC that are yours.
A very legitimate way of backup up BTC is to just copy your wallet.dat and blockchain to a thumbdrive and store it in a safe deposit box offsite. If you ever lose your main computer for any reason, restore the backups from the thumb drive, let your blockchain catch up to current, and all your money is still intact.
From the forum post referenced, it appears that this is untrue. If I backup my wallet today to a thumb drive, then spend 1 BTC of my money, then my backup is worthless as it will only have the keys to an empty address. The only way to backup your wallet safely is to store a backup after the most recent transaction.
That is not true. Your wallet.dat doesn't contain your money, the blockchain does. Your wallet.dat just contains the keys to validate that you can spend the money that exists in the blockchain.
If you restore your wallet.dat and let it catch up to the current blockchain, you will still have all your money, unless you really spent it.
edit: Ok, I guess I am mistaken - I see now how this happened with a really old version of the client. Newer versions of the client pre-generate several addresses in your wallet.dat, so even if you only restored an old version of wallet.dat, you would still have access to any money that is in the blockchain that you spent in the recent past. Of course, you should never let your wallet.dat fall too far behind.
If you back up your wallet prior to the transaction of 1BTC, it will not receive the private keys to the change address. Your private keys in your wallet.dat will point to an empty account. That is what this entire post about losing $81,000 is about.
Comments
The transactions are in the block chain, but the key to make new transactions are in the wallet.dat.
That being said, I dont see how any bitcoins were lost given the example in the post. When the wallet from the flash drive was restored, he should have access to the coins again.
Perhaps by spending the coin you put your backup copy of the wallet in a state where it disagrees with "the network". In which case he's making a very important point: backups are not enough, they have to be realtime synchronized backups.
Your key pairs are still valid, though, and they're in the backed up wallet. If those 9k were purchased and a few confirmations were achieved, then everyone with the current block chain will recognize your keys.
That the client is problematic doesn't mean the data/$ is gone.
Except he doesn't have the keys, because the transaction generated a new keypair for the remainder left post-transaction. The new key didn't get backed up because it didn't exist at the time of the last backup.
Absolutely correct. There is no way you can lose your Bitcoins as long as you have a backup of your wallet. The only way to lose Bitcoins is to:
A. Send them to someone else, which will create a new block in the chain that is confirmed by miners. B. Lose your wallet.dat completely and therefore your private keys forfeiting any way to access BTC that are yours.
A very legitimate way of backup up BTC is to just copy your wallet.dat and blockchain to a thumbdrive and store it in a safe deposit box offsite. If you ever lose your main computer for any reason, restore the backups from the thumb drive, let your blockchain catch up to current, and all your money is still intact.
From the forum post referenced, it appears that this is untrue. If I backup my wallet today to a thumb drive, then spend 1 BTC of my money, then my backup is worthless as it will only have the keys to an empty address. The only way to backup your wallet safely is to store a backup after the most recent transaction.
That is not true. Your wallet.dat doesn't contain your money, the blockchain does. Your wallet.dat just contains the keys to validate that you can spend the money that exists in the blockchain.
If you restore your wallet.dat and let it catch up to the current blockchain, you will still have all your money, unless you really spent it.
edit: Ok, I guess I am mistaken - I see now how this happened with a really old version of the client. Newer versions of the client pre-generate several addresses in your wallet.dat, so even if you only restored an old version of wallet.dat, you would still have access to any money that is in the blockchain that you spent in the recent past. Of course, you should never let your wallet.dat fall too far behind.
illumin8, can you please read this post and explain why you think it is wrong? http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=782.msg8625#msg8625
If you back up your wallet prior to the transaction of 1BTC, it will not receive the private keys to the change address. Your private keys in your wallet.dat will point to an empty account. That is what this entire post about losing $81,000 is about.