Litecoin vs bitcoin chart analysis
18 comments
Dogecoin exchange buy online
List of Bitcoin-related software. Be sure to keep on top of the latest security vulnerabilities! A bitcoin wallet is a software program, which allows the user to easily manage their bitcoin transactions. It does so, by checking for balances for the users addresses and securing the corresponding private keys.
Usual functionality for a wallet include receiving and sending bitcoins from the device running the wallet, a view of the transaction history, an address book and the import of additional wallets or private keys.
The most important distinction can be made between thin and full wallets. A thin wallet fetches information about the users transactions either from a trusted server, or from the bitcoin network directly. The device running the thin wallet doesn't have to keep a copy of the whole transaction history of the whole bitcoin network, which is called The Blockchain.
A full wallet looks up the users transaction history on a locally stored copy of the the blockchain and thus has to save it and synchronize it constantly. Because the blockchain is of significant size, tens of Gigabytes so far, this can be challenging for users.
It is therefore for most users recommended to use thin wallets. There is also a third kind of wallet to be mentioned, which can be called a third-party wallet. These wallets only connect the user to a third-party, usually a bitcoin company, which manages the addresses and keys of the user for him or her.
The device of the user therefore doesn't actually run a wallet, but more of a connection program to the wallet which is actually running on the companies servers. Some third-party wallet providers allow transactions between users who both use the same wallet company, to have instantly confirmed transactions, sending bitcoins not to cumbersome addresses but e-mail-address-, and social network handles.
This can make them more convenient for the user, but they also come with risk. Because the company holds the keys, its owners can simply run off with the users bitcoins, they can be pressured by governments to give agencies information about their users and so on.
Third-party wallets should therefore be viewed more as a bank which happens to do bitcoin transactions, rather than a bitcoin wallet. Retrieved from " https: Pages with broken file links Software. Navigation menu Personal tools English Create account Log in. Views Read View source View history. Navigation Main page Recent changes Random page Help.
This page was last edited on 24 October , at Privacy policy About Bitcoin.