Thank you! I really needed the $1.20 right then.
FYI it's going in the only bitcoin ATM in the world that also supports steem dollars.
Upvoted and resteemed!
Can you help me understand? I knew to scan the QR code, and got a wallet address. Being rather new to the bitcoin community, I'm at a loss as to what to do with the wallet address to get the amount within (if @williambanks hadn't already snagged them).
This does show the point that if one is not careful, anyone can get your money. Additionally, if anyone gets into one's safe deposit box (i.e., governments, banks, thieves) bitcoin or any alt-coin can, and likely will, disappear without a trace, whether the information is private key codes, QR codes, paper wallets, etc. One must keep these things safer than in a safe deposit box.
So in this case @moondancer762 the QR code WAS the private key. In a paper wallet there are 2 QR codes, the public and the private. Vault guy was examining his bitcoin paper wallets in a bank vault where there are security cameras and the security camera picked up on the private key side of his paper wallet.
OK, but even with a private key, one must know where to use it, right? I cannot just take that private key, plug it into my poloniex/bittrex/whatever wallet and receive the funds, right? Or does it work that way?
Also if you think that's scary, consider that your private key is actually just a number between 0 and 2^256-1 which means anyone that guesses it also has access to your funds.
Fortunately that is still something on the order of a trillion keys for every atom in the known universe. So it's a really, really large space to search...
Allusion to the paradoxical nature of relying on banks physical security to safeguard digital currency that is intended to bypass the banking system?
Thank you! I really needed the $1.20 right then.
FYI it's going in the only bitcoin ATM in the world that also supports steem dollars.
Upvoted and resteemed!
BIP38 FTW - https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/bip38-password-encrypted-wallets/
Congrats! I thought someone would of snagged it immediately, but it took a little while.
It was really tiny and hard to scan. Probably the only reason it took so long.
Can you help me understand? I knew to scan the QR code, and got a wallet address. Being rather new to the bitcoin community, I'm at a loss as to what to do with the wallet address to get the amount within (if @williambanks hadn't already snagged them).
This does show the point that if one is not careful, anyone can get your money. Additionally, if anyone gets into one's safe deposit box (i.e., governments, banks, thieves) bitcoin or any alt-coin can, and likely will, disappear without a trace, whether the information is private key codes, QR codes, paper wallets, etc. One must keep these things safer than in a safe deposit box.
So in this case @moondancer762 the QR code WAS the private key. In a paper wallet there are 2 QR codes, the public and the private. Vault guy was examining his bitcoin paper wallets in a bank vault where there are security cameras and the security camera picked up on the private key side of his paper wallet.
BIP38 solves this by encrypting the private key with a password that you select, so anyone looking over your shoulder can't just snap it and steal the private key and hence the bitcoins.
Try it for yourself at either of these sites... https://www.bitaddress.org/
https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/bitcoinpaperwallet/generate-wallet.html
You'll also need something to read it. I recommend mycelium for Android, then you just use "cold storage" import or spend.
OK, but even with a private key, one must know where to use it, right? I cannot just take that private key, plug it into my poloniex/bittrex/whatever wallet and receive the funds, right? Or does it work that way?
It works exactly that way.
Also if you think that's scary, consider that your private key is actually just a number between 0 and 2^256-1 which means anyone that guesses it also has access to your funds.
Fortunately that is still something on the order of a trillion keys for every atom in the known universe. So it's a really, really large space to search...
Bitcoin - you are your bank!