You can not select more than 25 topics
Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
69 lines
3.3 KiB
69 lines
3.3 KiB
Bitcoin 0.3.24 BETA
|
|
|
|
Copyright (c) 2009-2011 Bitcoin Developers
|
|
Distributed under the MIT/X11 software license, see the accompanying
|
|
file license.txt or http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php.
|
|
This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in
|
|
the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/). This product includes
|
|
cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Intro
|
|
-----
|
|
Bitcoin is a free open source peer-to-peer electronic cash system that is
|
|
completely decentralized, without the need for a central server or trusted
|
|
parties. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly
|
|
with each other, with the help of a P2P network to check for double-spending.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Setup
|
|
-----
|
|
Unpack the files into a directory and run:
|
|
bin/32/bitcoin (GUI, 32-bit)
|
|
bin/32/bitcoind (headless, 32-bit)
|
|
bin/64/bitcoin (GUI, 64-bit)
|
|
bin/64/bitcoind (headless, 64-bit)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wallet Encryption
|
|
-----------------
|
|
Bitcoin supports native wallet encryption so that people who steal your wallet
|
|
file don't automatically get access to all of your Bitcoins. In order to enable
|
|
this feature, chose "Encrypt Wallet" from the Options menu. You will be prompted
|
|
to enter a passphrase, which will be used as the key to encrypt your wallet and
|
|
will be needed every time you wish to send Bitcoins. If you lose this passphrase,
|
|
you will lose access to spend all of the bitcoins in your wallet, no one, not even
|
|
the Bitcoin developers can recover your Bitcoins. This means you are responsible
|
|
for your own security, store your password in a secure location and do not forget
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
Remember that the encryption built into bitcoin only encrypts the actual keys
|
|
which are required to send your bitcoins, not the full wallet. This means that
|
|
someone who steals your wallet file will be able to see all the addresses which
|
|
belong to you, as well as the relevant transactions, you are only protected from
|
|
someone spending your coins.
|
|
|
|
It is recommended that you backup your wallet file before you encrypt your wallet.
|
|
To do this, close the Bitcoin client and copy the wallet.dat file from ~/.bitcoin/
|
|
on Linux, /Users/(user name)/Application Support/Bitcoin/ on Mac OSX, and
|
|
%APPDATA%/Bitcoin/ on Windows (that is /Users/(user name)/AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin on
|
|
Windows Vista and 7 and /Documents and Settings/(user name)/Application Data/Bitcoin
|
|
on Windows XP). Once you have copied that file to a safe location, reopen the
|
|
Bitcoin client and Encrypt your wallet. If everything goes fine, delete the backup
|
|
and enjoy your encrypted wallet. Note that once you encrypt your wallet, you will
|
|
never be able to go back to a version of the Bitcoin client older than 0.4.
|
|
|
|
Keep in mind that you are always responsible for you own security. All it takes is a
|
|
slightly more advanced wallet-stealing trojan which installs a keylogger to steal
|
|
your wallet passphrase as you enter it in addition to your wallet file and you have
|
|
lost all your Bitcoins. Wallet encryption cannot keep you safe if you do not practice
|
|
good security, such as running up-to-date antivirus software, only entering your
|
|
wallet passphrase in the Bitcoin client and using the same passphrase only as your
|
|
wallet passphrase.
|
|
|
|
|
|
See the documentation at the bitcoin wiki:
|
|
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page
|
|
|
|
... for help and more information.
|