How to backup wallet.dat for PIVX or other cryptos + The Do's and Don'ts when backing up
Your Crypto is always safe as long as it is backed up however it does need to be secure so make sure you encrypt that wallet! . Now some people actually tend to forget their wallet password, If you are one of those people don't panic. Simply print out a few copies of it.
Hide it in these possible areas if you are out of ideas:
- Empty Pringles can hidden under your bed
- Behind any picture frames in your house
- Inside the case of your PC
- In A safe
HINT: Try laminating it
Now once you have encrypted your wallet, lets focus on backing dat wallet.dat up.
Your wallet.dat is found here:
Windows: %appdata%/pivx (or your other crypto name)
Linux: ~/.pivx/ (or your other crypto name)
Mac : ~/Library/Application Support/pivx (or your other crypto name)
Now you should see the wallet.dat file, if you are having a problem locating it or accessing those directories please contact me @jeffrey on slack, or comment here.
The do locations when backing up your wallet:
- Back it up on a secure flashdrive , stored in a safe location
- CD/DVD is also good
- External hard drive not in use
- A RaspberryPI wallet for staking to keep it secure
- Encrypted partition on your HDD / SDD , use Veracrypt
- Paper wallet backup , printed and laminated. Put it in a secure location.
Note: Keep these secure, and backup more than 1 time. Better safe than sorry.
The Don'ts for backing up your wallet:
- Never ever store your wallet.dat on any cloudhosting platform no matter how secure they advertise themselves to be. Look at the icloud hack or dropbox. Avoid all of them. Mega,dropbox,icloud,amazon etc.
- Backing up your wallet.dat and putting it on another folder on your pc doesn't count when suddenly you are infected by a virus or your hard drive crashes.
- Getting a tattoo of your private key is cringe and definitely not safe.
- Never upload your private keys to any online storage or image storage. Print only at your home printer.
Never ever trust anyone wanting to help you with your wallet.dat unless you can confirm that they are working in the official support team of the cryptocurrency you support.
Stay safe <3
If you enjoyed my blog, find my tutorials useful and would like to give back:
ChainCoin: CYVkNQrHCusd9fsn3YbLwVTJP6zJYiu5HK
PIVX: DBT3PdoJgXgY5T1oLUnqXv6TrnWrKk4zBD
BTC : 14zZr1UzZcatst8vhr2XgFieAwxK1pfZHG
Hey @jeffblogs. Just found you through the post on the slack channel. I'm a huge PIVX fan too!
Hi thanks for the helpful article. I have a question. I paid a guy (on Fiverr) $20 to set up my ChainCoin masternode on AWS, which seems to be free for a single node, which is why I did it. I paid him to do it because I have no experience at all in cloud servers etc. So this guy set it up, and in the process, sent me my public and private keys. I used the public key to send 1000 CHC from Cryptopia. Now it's done, and seems to be working. During the process I chose my own passphrase for the Certificate that's used to log on with Putty. However, the guy who set this up obviously knows my private key, and he probably had access to my wallet.dat file. So, am I correct that he can steal my coins out of the master node, or would he have to know my passphrase too? What would I have to do now to prevent that from happening? Is it too late to encrypt the wallet.dat file if he already has it unencrypted?
If he has your private key, then yes.
I would always recommend that you setup your own masternode, I have a tutorial for windows on my steemit
Thank you for the article, I just wanted to ask; the wallet I just backed up is that the same file that is on the VPS for my masternode?
Many thanks in advance :)
Very good post. I was about to start a similair discussion. Sell the coins that you know nothing about. Do proper research on any coin you buy. If the market falls at least you can hold your coins knowing they have a long term future. Besides coinmarketcap.com there is: https://www.coincheckup.com I'm really enthusiastic about this site, they let you analyze every single coin out there. Check: https://www.coincheckup.com/coins/PIVX#analysis To check PIVX Indepth analysis.