managing bitcoins with a bitcoin core official wallet
you can send & receive bitcoins using a full node bitcoin core wallet
to do that you must:
Step 1. download and install the Bitcoin wallet program called bitcoin-qt.exe
Step 2. synchronize the wallet with the bitcoin network downloading the bitcoin blockchain distributed ledger
on 25 jul 2024 bitcoin blockchain weighs 635 GB and blocks=853892
So, to be loose, you need more than 635 GB of free available space and a bandwith and computational resources to download 496 GB of the zipped blockchain files through the net
We are proud to announce that it can be done with a medium power home PC, a middle size stable bandwith connection, the help of our blockchaindownload.store site and with a lot of patience
With these resources we down the time of the bitcoin blockchain full synchronization to a few 10 hours !
step 1.
to download the english version of Bitcoin-qt installer go to https://bitcoin.org/en/download
to download the spanish version of Bitcoin-qt installer go to https://bitcoin.org/es/descargar
to another language, go to https://bitcoin.org , see the upright of the page, choose your wanted language, then find a link to download
Note: til 25 Jul 2024 the latest version of Bitcoin Core official wallet is v27.0.0 When it appear v0.20.1 please consider v27.0.0
Save the Zip bitcoin-0.20.1-win64.zip with the Bitcoin-qt installer in a folder you then remember
UnZip bitcoin-0.20.1-win64.zip in another folder you then remember too
You will see something like that:
In the directory ../bin is the wallet program bitcoin-qt.exe:
run bitcoin-qt.exe for the 1st time
It's happen that windows and its built-in antivirus detects this wallet program as a false positive to prevent its execution
Just click in More Information
Just click in Execute anyway
One more step is to set up where bitcoin blockchain will be saved in your computer
If you have enough 635 GB available space in your C: drive just click the 1st button option
If not, click the 2nd button and redirect the default data directory installation (we recommend the same structure but in the drive D: - make the directories needed)
Click Ok and you will see something like that:
and then:
Click Hide and you will see the Front End of your bitcoin core official wallet:
Meanwhile you look your wallet front end the wallet program bitcoin-qt.exe made the structure and data directories in the place that you set up, is connecting to the network peers and is downloading the blockchain until full sync (last update look like this)
All the blocks mined in the past after the genesis block are saved in the directory ../blocks with an index in the directory ../blocks/index and the state of the blockchain in the directory ../chainstate
All of your bitcoins are saved in the directory ../wallets in a very important file called wallet.dat
Please, always make a regularly backup of your wallet.dat and put it in another safe place -USB media, external drive, etc..
If your bitcoin core wallet broke you can restore it and replace the file wallet.dat with your wallet.dat saved and recover all of your bitcoins !
about configuration and safety of your bitcoin core wallet
to increase security and privacy in managing your bitcoin core wallet it is recommended to encrypt your wallet with a strong password and saved it in a safe place you desire
Go to menu Configuration and click Encrypt wallet
inserting a strong password clicking ok and will appear
Therefore, do not lose your strong password. Click Yes and you will see a padlock indicating that your wallet is encrypted
To see information about the state of the block synchronization go to menu Window --> Information and you will see the Number of blocks downloaded increasing and the date
about receive and send bitcoins with your bitcoin core official wallet
receiving bitcoins
To receive bitcoins you need to communicate an address of your wallet to the sender.
To generate an address of your wallet please click the Receive icon:
and will appear
You can introduce a Label x example Bicoin0 and click in the button Generate new address to receive
Your address to inform to the sender is: bc1qygxl9w7658cpklvtfnd697l3tmn6psq4nymh8k
sending bitcoins
To send bitcoins you need an address of the receiver.
Click the Send icon and will appear
