I recently purchased some bitcoins, which were sent via coinapult to my cell phone. I received a text for the amount with a link to an online wallet (apparently not a true wallet but just an account within a larger wallet). I would like to have my own wallet. I’ve downloaded the bitcoin wallet program (for windows) from this website. (bitcoin-qt) version 0.6.2-win32. When I open this program it claims to be “synchronizing with network” a certain number of “blocks”. In the “received coins” tab is listed an address. Using my coinapult via the link provided on my smartphone I sent a bitcoin to the listed address. However I see no evidence it was received. Do I need to wait for the synchronizing process to complete to send bitcoins to this wallet?
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im very new to this but i need to pay for something and i cant buy bitcoins with my crdit card and i dont know how to mine/pool or anything this all seems impossible to get these coins i need 3 bitcoins abnd really dont know how i go about it someone help im dumb – Jan 15 '13 at 15:55
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@luke Welcome to the Bitcoin StackExchange! Your question has been answered here before: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/91/how-do-you-obtain-bitcoins – Luc Jan 15 '13 at 19:39
2 Answers
Using the default client (which it appears you are) transactions received while the client is online will usually appear immediately but transactions which occur while the client is offline will not appear until the block containing them is downloaded. Based on your description this appears to be what has happened, so your transaction should show up whenever that particular block downloads.
You could also try punching your address into http://blockchain.info and you should be able to see your transaction as well as what block contains it.
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You can send Bitcoins to a wallet even without being synchronised, but you will most likely only see them appear once you do get synchronised. If everything goes well (it should), your address will be credited and the record will be stored in the block chain, allowing you to retrieve it upon synchronisation.
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Lets hope, its been 2 hours and its just over half the blocks have been synchronized. – Dave Jun 26 '12 at 21:12
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3The synchronisation is slow, and gets slower towards the end, so having half the blocks doesn't mean you're half way through. (Recent blocks are bigger than early blocks, since the Bitcoin network is used more now than a couple of years ago, and the very newest blocks are subject to more thorough checking than old blocks). You only have to do the full synchronisation once though. – Chris Moore Jun 26 '12 at 21:22
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1"You only have to do the full synchronisation once though.". Well, if you turn your client off for a week or so, you'll be spending some time catching up again. – Thilo Jun 27 '12 at 05:23
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@Thilo Yes, but it will be nowhere near as long as synchronising 3,5 years of blocks... – ThePiachu Jun 27 '12 at 12:08
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Over the night my computer froze and became unresponsive. I do not think synchonizing process has finished. After restarting my computer I cannot even open the wallet on my labtop. It gives me an error loading message whenever I attempt to open it. It spent at least 12 hours synchronizing and did not finish, even though my web connection is fine. – Dave Jun 27 '12 at 16:28
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@Dave Probably means some file became corrupt. You'll have to delete all your files from Bitcoin data directory (asides the wallet.dat, that file you should never delete!) and start Bitcoin again, which means you'll have to synchronise again.
You could always look into some eWallets, which will let you use Bitcoins without the need to synchronize, ever. Alternatively, there are some lite clients that don't require as much synchronization...
– ThePiachu Jun 27 '12 at 16:33 -
Ok in the bitcoin folder that downloaded from this site there are 4 icons and 2 folders. The folders are "daemon" and "src". The icons are bitcoin-qt, license, readme,(last two are just notpad text documents) and uninstall. Whenever I click to open bitcoin, it errors. Are you saying I should delete all the icons except the bitcoin-qt? If I did would that mean it should start or should I simple redownload the package? If I did that wouldnt it overrite the current one? sorry Im just not that fluent in computers. – Dave Jun 27 '12 at 17:22
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@Dave That's Bitcoin installation folder, while the data folder you can find here - http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/4007/323 (probably C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\Bitcoin). If it has "wallet.dat" file, you're at the right place. – ThePiachu Jun 27 '12 at 17:33
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Yeah, nothing is working. I cannot get bitcoin to open at all let alone begin the synchronizing process again. I just wont even open. – Dave Jun 27 '12 at 20:18
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I've redownloaded the windows wallet setup. It downloads fine but as soon as you run it, it fails to open, just as previously. The original wallet is still on my desktop. – Dave Jun 27 '12 at 20:35
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@Dave You don't need to delete the CLIENT (in Program Files), but the files in the Bitcoin DATA FOLDER (Appdata\Roaming\Bitcoin), except the wallet.dat. – ThePiachu Jun 27 '12 at 22:02
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I deleted everything in the date folder except the wallet. However the wallet still will not run. I redownloaded the windows version, however it will not creat a new folder, it simply fails to run after its downloaded. – Dave Jun 27 '12 at 22:17
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@Dave Hmm, that is strange. If you move the Wallet out of the data folder to some other safe place and run Bitcoin, does it work? Have you uninstalled and reinstalled the client? If it is just the wallet that doesn't let Bitcoin run, you might want to redeem it in places like MtGox. If all of that doesn't help, you ought to start a new question on this problem. – ThePiachu Jun 28 '12 at 00:22