Quote from: cyberzac on December 27, 2011, 05:42:11 PM

I think that the word wallet is a bad choice? My reasons are:

Your bit coins are not stored in your wallet.
A copy of your wallet is the same as the original

A much better name is bitcoin-keyring, you have a bitcoin-address and a corresponding bitcoin-key stored in your keyring.
It's easy to understand that if you lose your key you can't access your bitcoins. If somebody get a copy of your key, they can take your coins.

I agree with the OP 100%. I've been advocating 'portfolio', but 'keyring' is good as well. DeathAndTaxes I've read many of your responses to newbies who are thoroughly confused by keys. Why add an unnecessary extra layer of abstraction? People may not understand public key cryptography nor transactions, but 'wallet' goes a long way to hide the truth and keeps people stupid.

Why must one backup a wallet periodically? Why is the cash in my wallet not like real cash? How do I make anonymous transactions? If someone has a copy of my wallet, can I just send and receive all the coins to a new address in my wallet? Why are funds sent to and from my wallet associated and traceable? If someone sends me a wallet, is it mine, can it be trusted, why not? Why do I need to be connected to the internet to confirm my wallet balance? Why does my wallet file get bigger even if my balance gets smaller? Can I delete my old wallet if I create a new one? How can someone have stolen my money if I still have my wallet? What is an address, why don't I just use the same one?

All of these questions are asked - or perhaps should be asked. And the answer invariably contains the notion of keys. Why not call things what they are?: A private local keyring. Keys can be copied and deleted, wallets can not. People generally have multiple keys but one wallet, we can not hide addresses. Addresses are like safe deposit boxes. The analogy of address boxes and keys is easy to understand and very close to the digital reality.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, maybe it really is a