Quote from: RGBKey on December 04, 2017, 12:21:52 AM

Quote from: HistoryBloke on December 03, 2017, 11:40:35 PM

Quote from: Welsh on December 03, 2017, 11:21:30 PM

but still note down your private keys and keep them in a safe

How exactly? I'm not sure how I would find them.

To do this in Bitcoin Core, you'd need to open the debug console, unlock your wallet with the walletpassphrase command, then use the dumpprivkey command on every address in your wallet that contains coins. This is a laborious process, and it's much easier to simply back up your wallet.dat file (hopefully you encrypted it with a password that you won't forget) which contains the deterministic key for your wallet, meaning if you back up that file, you won't need to replace it with a new version every time you receive coins.

Perfect! Thank you! One more question...

So if I backup the wallet.dat tonight and disassemble my PC, but I receive some bitcoin in the next few weeks. When I re-install my core client, restore the wallet, and re-sync to the network... will the newly sent BTC be there? I guess what I'm asking is...

1. Does the wallet.dat file itself contain the bitcoin? or...
2. Does the blockchain technically contain my bitcoin and the wallet.dat file is simply the "key" to access the "safe-deposit box?" I assume the core client will process the blockchain and then see that I'm supposed to have x amount of bitcoin, so it then "arrives?"