In the case of a hard fork, are my bitcoins safe on a web based wallet?
Millions of users store their bitcoins on web based wallets, such as blockchain.info. With the impending hard fork coming up on August 1, a lot of those users are worried whether they would have access to all the versions of their bitcoins in the case of a hard fork.
To answer this question, first we need to understand the different kinds of web based wallets. The two main types of web based wallets are custodial and non-custodial ones. With a custodial wallet, you don't have access to your public and private keys, while with a non-custodial wallet, you do have access to them. If your wallet has the option of keeping a 12-24 words phrase (Wallet seed), it means it is a non-custodial one. Moreover, with that phrase, you can recover all your public and private keys. Blockchain.info is one such example and in my previous post (https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@hmushtaq/how-to-get-your-private-keys-from-a-blockchain-wallet-account), I showed how to use the wallet seed to gain access to all the public and private keys of a blockchain.info wallet. However, if you are still not satisfied with a non-custodial web based wallet, you can always move to a desktop based or even a hardware based wallet.
Below, I am giving a list of web based wallets and their types.
- Blockchain.info - Non-custodial
- BreadWallet - Non-custodial
- GreenAddress - Non-custodial
- Uphold - Custodial
- Spectrocoin - Custodial
Note that in the case of a hard fork, the amount of bitcoins in your wallet would not simply double, but you will have access to two separate cryptocurrencies. But like I previously said, make sure you use a wallet whose public and private keys you have access to, or else you may lose one version of your bitcoins forever!
No. You need to have the copies of your private keys.
And this is exactly what I said. With the wallet seed, you can see all the private and public keys. See my previous post, https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@hmushtaq/how-to-get-your-private-keys-from-a-blockchain-wallet-account, on how to get all your public and private keys with a wallet seed.
Nice intro. good calls on what to do with the coins as well! My plan of attack now is to gain access to all the info on all my wallets, and then decide which ones I am going to use during this time, and then make those the most secure and gain full knowledge on how to use them properly!
Great post it´s allways good to know about this things! Im following you ! Resteeming this to my followers. Hope it helps a little.
Excellent & very informative post. i upvote your post !
Great article!