BitCoin: Is leaving your Desktop Client Running Safe?

In this video Jason answers a questions about the safety of leaving your desktop client running 24/7.

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• Category

  Education

[CliveAtFive]

My grandmother has no idea how to zip or encrypt her wallet. She CAN drag a file into her MEGA account, which effortlessly encrypts, client side, so even if your account is compromised, your wallet file is still secure. It's infinitely safer than a hack-tastic Windows box.

If you insist on running a desktop client, do it on Linux, or your bitcoins are already gone.

And what's with the personal attacks? I suppose that if your argument was good enough, you wouldn't have to try to insult me.

[DynamicVentures]

That's ridiculous. Encrypt your wallet, save the wallet.dat, zip the file with password protection, store the file in multiple locations and ta-da. Safe and secure.

Only a moron would trust his money to a 3rd party. How many sites have been "hacked" and people lost all their btc? You're a as dumb as you look.

[silverlithomes]

That's fucking funny. I'm trying to figure out how not to lose mine ...

[Oskar Dirlewanger]

In this video a bitcoin user shows he's just as moronic as other bitcoin users.

[mungojelly]

Sure it's safe to run it, the question is whether it's safe to keep any BTC in or near it. ;) Small quick hot wallets on the web, larger (but still diversified) cold wallets in offline safe storage. Most of us know that principle, and we follow it more or less strictly depending on the complicated economics of our own lazinesses. Let's remind one another to keep our coin safe, lest Bitcoin be known to history as "that attempted cryptocurrency that everyone lost their private keys to." ;)

[CliveAtFive]

I think this boils down to a simpler security issue, which is overall hackability. If you use Windows or Mac, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT USE THE DESKTOP CLIENT TO STORE BITCOINS LOCALLY. Set your mining accounts to send your bitcoins to a wallet that you store on a password-protected cloud-based storage site, or better yet, send it straight to your Mt. Gox or Blockchain account. And do not put all your eggs into one basket.