Bitcoin Wiki - User contributions [en]

Talk:Donation-accepting organizations and projects

2011-09-25T15:04:53Z

Hartrock: Notability problem

==== Notability problem ====
I have problems with the term 'notable' in
Only notable donation-accepting sites should be added here.
: this excludes announcing ''newly'' developed services, which naturally don't have 'notability'.
A solution could be to create another page, or to divide this page into one section with notability and one without. The general problem with this term is, who decides, who has notability and who not?

My use-case is announcing
[http://www.evolgo.de/RYT/ Roll Your Tasks (RYT)] A free browser based task management app for individuals and small groups. Bitcoin donations welcome.
I would like to have a good place for this announcement (Note: currently it is under [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Productivity Trade->Productivity], but it has been deleted once with the justification, that it is not 'trade' in a tight sense).

[[User:Hartrock|Hartrock]] 15:04, 25 September 2011 (GMT)

Can I put link for donation (oviajor.com.br/?page_id=47) to Manoel Lima (respectable) Author from (O Viajor) Book?

Website of author/actor: manoellima.com.br
Website of book: oviajor.com.br

Youtube channel from Manoel Lima (book launch on great boostore)
youtube.com/watch?v=jPJIokp1IDc

Website from some stores that have the book:
Submarino biggest bookstore submarino.com.br/produto/1/21846267/viajor,+o
Americanas big bookstore americanas.com.br/produto/7177486/livros/literaturanacional/literaturanacional/livro-viajor-o

Thank you

Talk:Trade

2011-09-25T03:57:58Z

Hartrock: /* donation accepting organizasions */

==Proposed Listing Standards==
I propose the following standards be required for listing on the [Trade]. The listed site must
# Be currently functional (downtime of less than 48 hours is acceptable)
# Be currently accepting bitcoins
# Have clear instructions for paying with bitcoins from the link given
# Prices must be sane within an order of magnitude (non-sane prices indicate that the website has not been updated to match bitcoin deflation)
The standards will help keep the list manageable and easy to use.

This is a talk page, so please sign your contributions. I mostly agree, but the "sane prices" criterion seems a bit subjective ; there is a risk that we exclude goodwilling merchants, who would otherwise be willing to update their prices when contacted. [[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 10:43, 12 February 2011 (GMT)

:Here is an example [http://bitcoin2cash.com/]. When I say "sane", I mean reasonable within an order of magnitude. I moved your other comment to a separate section for clarity [[User:Ptd|Ptd]] 12:59, 13 February 2011 (GMT)

Sounds reasonable. --[[User:Sirius|Sirius]] 07:09, 23 February 2011 (GMT)
Reasonable. What about defining a practice for ordering the list of sites? I've got one to add, so I'll just tack it at the bottom, but it's going to be an ugly list after awhile. Alphabetical? Chronologically ordered by add date?
[[User:JulianTosh|JulianTosh]] 00:19, 10 May 2011 (GMT)

I'd say somewhat unreasonable regarding the clear instructions. A lot of my customers are the types who would get confused if I listed my native currency and Bitcoin side by side. I want to offer Bitcoin for Bitcoin users, but not at the risk of confusing other potential customers and potentially losing sales as a result. As such, I make it possible for customers to switch to using Bitcoin during the checkout process. [[User:Orbixx|Orbixx]] 18:39, 02 June 2011 (GMT)

Every link that does not go to a page that CLEARLY states they are accepting bitcoins should be removed. Try to go to the website Orbixx has added again, there is simply no way to check they accept bitcoins, and I believe they don't actually. I couldn't figure it out. So I think the rules should be that if the link does NOT arrive at a page that says the site is accepting bitcoins, it should be removed. Orbixx, companies can just create a separate page for it, and you link to that page, not simply to your homepage if you think it would be too confusing on the home page.
[[User:Berend|Berend]] 21:21, 2 June 2011 (GMT)

On Exoware.net payment methods are not stated at all until the checkout process; this is incredibly common. It should be evident that we accept Bitcoin because we are listed on this page and there should be no need to plaster it all over some landing page or on the site. As for your belief that "they don't actually [accept bitcoins]", you're welcome to try us - we do. The mere fact that you nonchalantly removed our listing in the first place for apparently not accepting Bitcoin without even getting in contact with us in the first place is ridiculous. Then to come on here after I email you with screenshots showing the page where you can change your currency to BTC and say that somehow you still maintain that we do not accept Bitcoin is preposterous. Do not remove any listings without first solidly verifying your inadequate assumptions. [[User:Orbixx|Orbixx]] 04:01, 03 June 2011 (GMT)

It's not unreasonable to expect a merchant to have a bitcoin logo among the mastercard, visa, paypal, google checkout, etc. buttons that clutter a corner of nearly every website that takes money. If they accept bitcoin, they should add a bitcoin logo there. if they take money, they should have a section that fits the description. it's that simple. no reason not to be able to tell at a glance. [[User:aarcane|aarcane]] 04:54, 03 June 2011 (UTC)

I suggest we vote on this. Vendors who have hidden the fact they accept bitcoin extremely well (try finding it on Orbixx's site) do not deserve to be listed here. We could create a separate page for them (i.e. unverifiable entries). [[User:Berend|Berend]] 22:24, 11 August 2011 (GMT)

I agree that a site that accepts bitcoin must Clearly Say So on any page that mentions payment options, and their front/landing page. Any site that does not say so Up Front, should not be listed as Accepting Bitcoin. How do you verify that they accept bitcoin until you've already selected a product/service, and gone to the checkout page, and Finally see an option for using Bitcoin? This is a ridiculous thing to do. If I only have a Mastercard, and I'm on a site that only accepts Visa, I'd be pretty upset to not find that out until I'm already at the checkout page!! Every site I have EVER used to purchase Anything online says, Up Front, what kinds of payment methods they accept. No confusion. [[User:Krepta3000|Krepta3000]] 17:47, 25 August 2011 (MST)

==Should we put addresses on the wiki?==
We just had some bitcoin address spam. perhaps it would not have happened if we did not put bitcoin addresses on the wiki ? [[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 23:50, 12 February 2011 (GMT)
: Page is now semi-protected. [[User:MagicalTux|MagicalTux]] 08:28, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Yea i suggest not to put the bitcoin addresses of donation-accepting orgs on the wiki. this opens it up to vandalism in hopes of getting misdirected bitcoins. just link to the relevant webpage of the donation-accepting organization, and that's all. that way also we don't have to worry about the addresses changing.--[[User:Nanotube|Nanotube]] 04:41, 24 February 2011 (GMT)

==Hide Contents of Adult?==
Should the contents of Adult be displayed by default, or might it be reasonable to expect that to be a hidden that requires an action for the contents of the category to be rendered? - [[User:sgornick]] 06:22, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

Should be hidden or moved to another page. --[[User:Sirius|Sirius]] 07:05, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

I'm all for censoring it as much as the community will tolerate. --[[User:Luke-jr|Luke-jr]] 13:27, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

Why hide adult section? They are just links to sites, and section is clearly labeled "Adult". What's the big idea on the censorship? --[[User:Nanotube|Nanotube]] 04:39, 24 February 2011 (GMT)

I suggest do not censor or hide. Consider for example genjix's calm reference to drugs in his presentation. Should he have been afraid and contemplative of censoring or preventing from communicating such things? Such is a kind of debate generally influenced by religi*** motivations. See [[Trade_R]] for adult content [[User:Mizerydearia|Mizerydearia]] 15:04, 27 April 2011 (GMT)

Against censorship of site links. They should simply be labeled as adult oriented and the vagues possible genre references.
[[User:JulianTosh|JulianTosh]] 00:21, 10 May 2011 (GMT)

The problem with listing every site together with adults sites is that automatic scanning software might label your business in the same group. You don't want that to happen, else your legitimate businesses will very quickly disappear from this page
[[User:Berend|Berend]] 21:18, 2 June 2011 (GMT)

The header for the page claims 'Products or services illegal in US or Japan are not fit to be listed here - such links will be removed immediately. Any attempt to get those links up again will result in the account being blocked. This includes pornography and many mind-altering drugs'. As pornography is not actually illegal in Japan or in the US, it should be clarified whether the restriction is the result of an editor attempting to enforce their ideology, a requirement that all porn comply with Japanese censorship regulations (i.e. mosaic over certain body parts - which I suspect fairly few bitcoin-accepting sites actually comply with), or an administrative decision whose force stems from private property rights rather than from .us/.jp law. [[User:Deekoo|Deekoo]] 05:54, 15 August 2011 (GMT)

== Drugs Section Empty ==

The "psychoactives" section appears to consist entirely of dead links. [[User:Ironwolf|Ironwolf]] 03:54, 28 March 2011 (GMT)

I deleted the Drugs section, since Bitcoin is still far too vulnerable to government actions against it -- there are many single points of failure. The most glaring to me is the DNS system -- the bitcoin.org domain could be taken down if the US government wishes to.

:This is a terrible decision. My company was removed because of this decision, and it disgusts me. Not all drugs are illegal. My company operates a physical storefront in the US. We ONLY sell drugs that you can buy at the supermarket down the road. Just because it is a "drug" or "psychoactive" doesn't mean that the government is trying to shut it down. Nicotine is a drug, aspirin is a drug, alcohol is a drug. Lotus petals are psychoactive, and so is chamomile and kava - but you can go into Walmart or Walgreens/CVS and buy them. These are the only drugs for sale. Stop freaking out about it. People have swept our business off this list twice because of this ridiculous mindset. We're a hippy art store - not a head shop or drug market. --[[User:Metagnosis|Metagnosis]] 17:59, 22 June 2011 (GMT)

I apologize to those merchants who may not get as many customers now, but really, it's probably better this way. Anyone who needs to can get a connection by asking around, I'm sure. My goal is only to reduce the "criminal" perception of Bitcoin. [[User:AaronM|AaronM]] 01:18, 27 April 2011 (GMT)

== What is a Notable Website ==

I started accepting bitcoin at http://la.indymedia.org and a couple other sites on the slaptech.net site. What's the standard for adding this to the list of sites? [[User:Johnk|Johnk]] 16:30, 17 April 2011 (GMT)

== New section for services that are not considered "Professional services"? ==

I'm wondering whether it might be advisable to add a section for services that are not really "professional services" as that term is ordinarily used in vernacular English.

For example, I just added a dump-truck haulage service to ''Professional services/Other''; but dump truck haulage is not generally considered a professional service. Ought we to consider adding a new section to the page? [[User:1ECVX6EAk53VER2NH5NKharUUGpfw8iUP6|1ECVX6EAk53VER2NH5NKharUUGpfw8iUP6]] 01:49, 4 May 2011 (GMT)

:i'm a massage therapist wanting to trade bitcoin for massage. what section do i put my services in?
:[[User:zenbunny|zenbunny]] 20:52, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

== donation accepting organizations ==

perhaps a separate page should be created for them ?
I guess donations do not belong to "trade".
[[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 23:17, 5 May 2011 (GMT)

:Definitely. It's a bit sad that there is no place to list all Bitcoin-accepted organizations, particularly smaller non-profit ones since they don't sell anything and the organizations page has a notability requirement. I'll create one if no one objects and/or does it before me. [[User:Blues|Blues]] 20:36, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

I've added RYT (Roll Your Tasks) under 'Productivity' again (has been deleted by user Luke-jr, probably because there is no force to pay for this service). Donations are accepted, but I'm not an organization of any kind. Moreover RYT is an app for enhancing productivity without political or similar intent, beside that I want to give others the opportunity to use it. I think it's good to also give non- or part-commercial efforts a chance to be listed here. If someone wants to have some specific (RYT) improvements, feel free to suggest a deal...

Listing criteria above are fullfilled:
Be currently functional (downtime of less than 48 hours is acceptable) -> fullfilled.
Be currently accepting bitcoins -> Yes.
Have clear instructions for paying with bitcoins from the link given -> Yes (bitcoin address).
Prices must be sane within an order of magnitude (non-sane prices indicate that the website has not been updated to match bitcoin deflation) -> Very sane (free, if you don't want to donate).
[[User:Hartrock|Hartrock]] 03:57, 25 September 2011 (GMT)

== Alternative listings for bitcoin-related directory and merchant sites ==

Because this wiki is censored and not allowing of certain contents or sites, I have set up http://bitcoinsites.witcoin.com/ to allow for all bitcoin-related sites to be posted. Feel free to also use this medium for commenting and reviewing sites as well. [[User:Mizerydearia|Mizerydearia]] 05:28, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

* Since witcoin.com is subject to US and/or Canada law, I would expect it to be censored as well eventually. But perhaps not a bad idea to make an alternative site for the ratings/reviews idea anyway... I won't use it if it's based on witcoin though, since they require paying to comment/rate... --[[User:Luke-jr|Luke-jr]] 18:27, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

[http://payco.in payco.in : bitcoin currency directory] - I've started a links list of my own (I admit I wanted to get my own site, [http://lorna-morgan.com Lorna Morgan], listed somewhere I wouldn't be removed!) I didn't like the design of witcoin ... and Bitcookies seems to be down at the moment. --[[User:Lorna Morgan|Lorna Morgan]] 05:36, 28 July 2011 (GMT)

[http://bitcookies.com Bitcookies] - A community resource to list businesses, events, and classifieds that are related to Bitcoin. The server is privately owned and therefore not subject to any controlling interests. The site does not, nor will it ever have censorship in terms of the types of businesses/traders/websites listed. The site is free to all community members and was developed with funds from my mining operations. [[User:Miner249er|Miner24934]] 16:25, 27 May 2011 (GMT)

== Bloomberg Esque Data Suite: Compiling Transaction info from merchants to measure demand ==

I am included on the list of many who are very interested in seeing bitcoin succeed and want to be a part of that success, but there is one serious uncertainity that is keeping me from getting in: are people actually using their coins for more than just buying drugs and slim jims, and is all of the buying concentrated in one website or product and one consumer demographic? Demand for the coins is necessary for their success. This can be determined by consumption rates and habits. I have perused the website listing, but still feel that information is lacking.

It would be nice to see an economic indicator that acquires data from merchants (and compensates them in bitcoin for their effort) on the dollar value (and perhaps sector) of the bitcoin transactions. We could then weigh a derivative of total dollar amount and number of transactions against the number of bitcoins mined to get a better understanding of the economic health of the currency.

== Require description of changes ==

It's impossible to read this pages's history, because most people seem to forget to:
- use the "description" line when committing a change
- use the "preview" button, and do several changes in a row just because they forgot the label on a link

The first point is the most important, because of changes like [https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Trade&diff=prev&oldid=11246 that one], that suppresses and adds random links without even explaining why. Such changes should be immediately reverted, by policy. On the technical side, one small improvement could be to require the "description" field to be non-empty. People could still write random characters, but that would still be a different action. --[[User:Davux|Davux]] 23:15, 22 June 2011 (GMT)

== Huge chunk of deletions reverted ==

Hi,

I've tracked down a huge set of deletions wich was probably done in error, [https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Trade&diff=next&oldid=11252 see link]. I've reverted each deletion individually because otherwise, new entries would have been deleted.

It's probably necessary to watch out for that. --[[User:Joise|Joise]] 18:55, 29 June 2011 (GMT)

== Vetting ==

I realise this is probably a difficult issue — we don't realistically have the time or work to vet all listed sites — but should ones which are clearly scams be removed from the wiki page, or should each be discussed first before deletion (perhaps, by moderator staff)?

For example: <blockquote>[https://sites.google.com/site/wwjdtd/ Time Warp interactive], is a fiction/nonfiction mmorpg that is in alpha and is selling the game only through bitcoins</blockquote>This, to me, is clearly a scam. Going through their Google Sites website (which is the new GeoCities), it becomes clear very quickly that this is not a product that it pretends to be, and is instead just some fly by night website setup by a couple of teenagers in hopes of some free cash from unsuspecting visitors.

I doubt anybody would actually send any BTC their way anyway, but in my opinion having hoaxes like this damages the credibility and trustworthy of Bitcoin accepting merchants as a whole.

Could we come up with some way of pruning false merchants like this?

::I think that links which are very clearly scam should not be promoted. However I see two difficulties:
::# It might be hard to see whether something is simply a low budget project or not serious.
::# What is reputable and what not certainly will vary widely. If you want to promote a bank, I'd likely want another neighborhood than if you just try to sell psychodelically designed pizza containing extremely high concentrations of capsain.
::# The more profound issue is that the not-to-reputable looking enterprises might be exactly the ones which bring the stongest kicks to innovation. I am thinking in the term "garage firm". And obviously grandparents will tell the kids some day that the whole bitcoin economy started with alpaca socks, online poker and fancy glass beads.

::My proposal: Create a playground / dockland / bitcoinpunk section which can collect the fringe of the fringe. And let largely visitors decide what they are going to trust. --[[User:Joise|Joise]] 19:21, 4 July 2011 (GMT)

== proposal ==

Separated pages for trading, bitcoin accepting online stores, games, free coins etc.

Talk:Trade

2011-09-25T03:57:15Z

Hartrock: /* donation accepting organizasions */

==Proposed Listing Standards==
I propose the following standards be required for listing on the [Trade]. The listed site must
# Be currently functional (downtime of less than 48 hours is acceptable)
# Be currently accepting bitcoins
# Have clear instructions for paying with bitcoins from the link given
# Prices must be sane within an order of magnitude (non-sane prices indicate that the website has not been updated to match bitcoin deflation)
The standards will help keep the list manageable and easy to use.

This is a talk page, so please sign your contributions. I mostly agree, but the "sane prices" criterion seems a bit subjective ; there is a risk that we exclude goodwilling merchants, who would otherwise be willing to update their prices when contacted. [[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 10:43, 12 February 2011 (GMT)

:Here is an example [http://bitcoin2cash.com/]. When I say "sane", I mean reasonable within an order of magnitude. I moved your other comment to a separate section for clarity [[User:Ptd|Ptd]] 12:59, 13 February 2011 (GMT)

Sounds reasonable. --[[User:Sirius|Sirius]] 07:09, 23 February 2011 (GMT)
Reasonable. What about defining a practice for ordering the list of sites? I've got one to add, so I'll just tack it at the bottom, but it's going to be an ugly list after awhile. Alphabetical? Chronologically ordered by add date?
[[User:JulianTosh|JulianTosh]] 00:19, 10 May 2011 (GMT)

I'd say somewhat unreasonable regarding the clear instructions. A lot of my customers are the types who would get confused if I listed my native currency and Bitcoin side by side. I want to offer Bitcoin for Bitcoin users, but not at the risk of confusing other potential customers and potentially losing sales as a result. As such, I make it possible for customers to switch to using Bitcoin during the checkout process. [[User:Orbixx|Orbixx]] 18:39, 02 June 2011 (GMT)

Every link that does not go to a page that CLEARLY states they are accepting bitcoins should be removed. Try to go to the website Orbixx has added again, there is simply no way to check they accept bitcoins, and I believe they don't actually. I couldn't figure it out. So I think the rules should be that if the link does NOT arrive at a page that says the site is accepting bitcoins, it should be removed. Orbixx, companies can just create a separate page for it, and you link to that page, not simply to your homepage if you think it would be too confusing on the home page.
[[User:Berend|Berend]] 21:21, 2 June 2011 (GMT)

On Exoware.net payment methods are not stated at all until the checkout process; this is incredibly common. It should be evident that we accept Bitcoin because we are listed on this page and there should be no need to plaster it all over some landing page or on the site. As for your belief that "they don't actually [accept bitcoins]", you're welcome to try us - we do. The mere fact that you nonchalantly removed our listing in the first place for apparently not accepting Bitcoin without even getting in contact with us in the first place is ridiculous. Then to come on here after I email you with screenshots showing the page where you can change your currency to BTC and say that somehow you still maintain that we do not accept Bitcoin is preposterous. Do not remove any listings without first solidly verifying your inadequate assumptions. [[User:Orbixx|Orbixx]] 04:01, 03 June 2011 (GMT)

It's not unreasonable to expect a merchant to have a bitcoin logo among the mastercard, visa, paypal, google checkout, etc. buttons that clutter a corner of nearly every website that takes money. If they accept bitcoin, they should add a bitcoin logo there. if they take money, they should have a section that fits the description. it's that simple. no reason not to be able to tell at a glance. [[User:aarcane|aarcane]] 04:54, 03 June 2011 (UTC)

I suggest we vote on this. Vendors who have hidden the fact they accept bitcoin extremely well (try finding it on Orbixx's site) do not deserve to be listed here. We could create a separate page for them (i.e. unverifiable entries). [[User:Berend|Berend]] 22:24, 11 August 2011 (GMT)

I agree that a site that accepts bitcoin must Clearly Say So on any page that mentions payment options, and their front/landing page. Any site that does not say so Up Front, should not be listed as Accepting Bitcoin. How do you verify that they accept bitcoin until you've already selected a product/service, and gone to the checkout page, and Finally see an option for using Bitcoin? This is a ridiculous thing to do. If I only have a Mastercard, and I'm on a site that only accepts Visa, I'd be pretty upset to not find that out until I'm already at the checkout page!! Every site I have EVER used to purchase Anything online says, Up Front, what kinds of payment methods they accept. No confusion. [[User:Krepta3000|Krepta3000]] 17:47, 25 August 2011 (MST)

==Should we put addresses on the wiki?==
We just had some bitcoin address spam. perhaps it would not have happened if we did not put bitcoin addresses on the wiki ? [[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 23:50, 12 February 2011 (GMT)
: Page is now semi-protected. [[User:MagicalTux|MagicalTux]] 08:28, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Yea i suggest not to put the bitcoin addresses of donation-accepting orgs on the wiki. this opens it up to vandalism in hopes of getting misdirected bitcoins. just link to the relevant webpage of the donation-accepting organization, and that's all. that way also we don't have to worry about the addresses changing.--[[User:Nanotube|Nanotube]] 04:41, 24 February 2011 (GMT)

==Hide Contents of Adult?==
Should the contents of Adult be displayed by default, or might it be reasonable to expect that to be a hidden that requires an action for the contents of the category to be rendered? - [[User:sgornick]] 06:22, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

Should be hidden or moved to another page. --[[User:Sirius|Sirius]] 07:05, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

I'm all for censoring it as much as the community will tolerate. --[[User:Luke-jr|Luke-jr]] 13:27, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

Why hide adult section? They are just links to sites, and section is clearly labeled "Adult". What's the big idea on the censorship? --[[User:Nanotube|Nanotube]] 04:39, 24 February 2011 (GMT)

I suggest do not censor or hide. Consider for example genjix's calm reference to drugs in his presentation. Should he have been afraid and contemplative of censoring or preventing from communicating such things? Such is a kind of debate generally influenced by religi*** motivations. See [[Trade_R]] for adult content [[User:Mizerydearia|Mizerydearia]] 15:04, 27 April 2011 (GMT)

Against censorship of site links. They should simply be labeled as adult oriented and the vagues possible genre references.
[[User:JulianTosh|JulianTosh]] 00:21, 10 May 2011 (GMT)

The problem with listing every site together with adults sites is that automatic scanning software might label your business in the same group. You don't want that to happen, else your legitimate businesses will very quickly disappear from this page
[[User:Berend|Berend]] 21:18, 2 June 2011 (GMT)

The header for the page claims 'Products or services illegal in US or Japan are not fit to be listed here - such links will be removed immediately. Any attempt to get those links up again will result in the account being blocked. This includes pornography and many mind-altering drugs'. As pornography is not actually illegal in Japan or in the US, it should be clarified whether the restriction is the result of an editor attempting to enforce their ideology, a requirement that all porn comply with Japanese censorship regulations (i.e. mosaic over certain body parts - which I suspect fairly few bitcoin-accepting sites actually comply with), or an administrative decision whose force stems from private property rights rather than from .us/.jp law. [[User:Deekoo|Deekoo]] 05:54, 15 August 2011 (GMT)

== Drugs Section Empty ==

The "psychoactives" section appears to consist entirely of dead links. [[User:Ironwolf|Ironwolf]] 03:54, 28 March 2011 (GMT)

I deleted the Drugs section, since Bitcoin is still far too vulnerable to government actions against it -- there are many single points of failure. The most glaring to me is the DNS system -- the bitcoin.org domain could be taken down if the US government wishes to.

:This is a terrible decision. My company was removed because of this decision, and it disgusts me. Not all drugs are illegal. My company operates a physical storefront in the US. We ONLY sell drugs that you can buy at the supermarket down the road. Just because it is a "drug" or "psychoactive" doesn't mean that the government is trying to shut it down. Nicotine is a drug, aspirin is a drug, alcohol is a drug. Lotus petals are psychoactive, and so is chamomile and kava - but you can go into Walmart or Walgreens/CVS and buy them. These are the only drugs for sale. Stop freaking out about it. People have swept our business off this list twice because of this ridiculous mindset. We're a hippy art store - not a head shop or drug market. --[[User:Metagnosis|Metagnosis]] 17:59, 22 June 2011 (GMT)

I apologize to those merchants who may not get as many customers now, but really, it's probably better this way. Anyone who needs to can get a connection by asking around, I'm sure. My goal is only to reduce the "criminal" perception of Bitcoin. [[User:AaronM|AaronM]] 01:18, 27 April 2011 (GMT)

== What is a Notable Website ==

I started accepting bitcoin at http://la.indymedia.org and a couple other sites on the slaptech.net site. What's the standard for adding this to the list of sites? [[User:Johnk|Johnk]] 16:30, 17 April 2011 (GMT)

== New section for services that are not considered "Professional services"? ==

I'm wondering whether it might be advisable to add a section for services that are not really "professional services" as that term is ordinarily used in vernacular English.

For example, I just added a dump-truck haulage service to ''Professional services/Other''; but dump truck haulage is not generally considered a professional service. Ought we to consider adding a new section to the page? [[User:1ECVX6EAk53VER2NH5NKharUUGpfw8iUP6|1ECVX6EAk53VER2NH5NKharUUGpfw8iUP6]] 01:49, 4 May 2011 (GMT)

:i'm a massage therapist wanting to trade bitcoin for massage. what section do i put my services in?
:[[User:zenbunny|zenbunny]] 20:52, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

== donation accepting organizasions ==

perhaps a separate page should be created for them ?
I guess donations do not belong to "trade".
[[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 23:17, 5 May 2011 (GMT)

:Definitely. It's a bit sad that there is no place to list all Bitcoin-accepted organizations, particularly smaller non-profit ones since they don't sell anything and the organizations page has a notability requirement. I'll create one if no one objects and/or does it before me. [[User:Blues|Blues]] 20:36, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

I've added RYT (Roll Your Tasks) under 'Productivity' again (has been deleted by user Luke-jr, probably because there is no force to pay for this service). Donations are accepted, but I'm not an organization of any kind. Moreover RYT is an app for enhancing productivity without political or similar intent, beside that I want to give others the opportunity to use it. I think it's good to also give non- or part-commercial efforts a chance to be listed here. If someone wants to have some specific (RYT) improvements, feel free to suggest a deal...

Listing criteria above are fullfilled:
Be currently functional (downtime of less than 48 hours is acceptable) -> fullfilled.
Be currently accepting bitcoins -> Yes.
Have clear instructions for paying with bitcoins from the link given -> Yes (bitcoin address).
Prices must be sane within an order of magnitude (non-sane prices indicate that the website has not been updated to match bitcoin deflation) -> Very sane (free, if you don't want to donate).
[[User:Hartrock|Hartrock]] 03:57, 25 September 2011 (GMT)

== Alternative listings for bitcoin-related directory and merchant sites ==

Because this wiki is censored and not allowing of certain contents or sites, I have set up http://bitcoinsites.witcoin.com/ to allow for all bitcoin-related sites to be posted. Feel free to also use this medium for commenting and reviewing sites as well. [[User:Mizerydearia|Mizerydearia]] 05:28, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

* Since witcoin.com is subject to US and/or Canada law, I would expect it to be censored as well eventually. But perhaps not a bad idea to make an alternative site for the ratings/reviews idea anyway... I won't use it if it's based on witcoin though, since they require paying to comment/rate... --[[User:Luke-jr|Luke-jr]] 18:27, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

[http://payco.in payco.in : bitcoin currency directory] - I've started a links list of my own (I admit I wanted to get my own site, [http://lorna-morgan.com Lorna Morgan], listed somewhere I wouldn't be removed!) I didn't like the design of witcoin ... and Bitcookies seems to be down at the moment. --[[User:Lorna Morgan|Lorna Morgan]] 05:36, 28 July 2011 (GMT)

[http://bitcookies.com Bitcookies] - A community resource to list businesses, events, and classifieds that are related to Bitcoin. The server is privately owned and therefore not subject to any controlling interests. The site does not, nor will it ever have censorship in terms of the types of businesses/traders/websites listed. The site is free to all community members and was developed with funds from my mining operations. [[User:Miner249er|Miner24934]] 16:25, 27 May 2011 (GMT)

== Bloomberg Esque Data Suite: Compiling Transaction info from merchants to measure demand ==

I am included on the list of many who are very interested in seeing bitcoin succeed and want to be a part of that success, but there is one serious uncertainity that is keeping me from getting in: are people actually using their coins for more than just buying drugs and slim jims, and is all of the buying concentrated in one website or product and one consumer demographic? Demand for the coins is necessary for their success. This can be determined by consumption rates and habits. I have perused the website listing, but still feel that information is lacking.

It would be nice to see an economic indicator that acquires data from merchants (and compensates them in bitcoin for their effort) on the dollar value (and perhaps sector) of the bitcoin transactions. We could then weigh a derivative of total dollar amount and number of transactions against the number of bitcoins mined to get a better understanding of the economic health of the currency.

== Require description of changes ==

It's impossible to read this pages's history, because most people seem to forget to:
- use the "description" line when committing a change
- use the "preview" button, and do several changes in a row just because they forgot the label on a link

The first point is the most important, because of changes like [https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Trade&diff=prev&oldid=11246 that one], that suppresses and adds random links without even explaining why. Such changes should be immediately reverted, by policy. On the technical side, one small improvement could be to require the "description" field to be non-empty. People could still write random characters, but that would still be a different action. --[[User:Davux|Davux]] 23:15, 22 June 2011 (GMT)

== Huge chunk of deletions reverted ==

Hi,

I've tracked down a huge set of deletions wich was probably done in error, [https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Trade&diff=next&oldid=11252 see link]. I've reverted each deletion individually because otherwise, new entries would have been deleted.

It's probably necessary to watch out for that. --[[User:Joise|Joise]] 18:55, 29 June 2011 (GMT)

== Vetting ==

I realise this is probably a difficult issue — we don't realistically have the time or work to vet all listed sites — but should ones which are clearly scams be removed from the wiki page, or should each be discussed first before deletion (perhaps, by moderator staff)?

For example: <blockquote>[https://sites.google.com/site/wwjdtd/ Time Warp interactive], is a fiction/nonfiction mmorpg that is in alpha and is selling the game only through bitcoins</blockquote>This, to me, is clearly a scam. Going through their Google Sites website (which is the new GeoCities), it becomes clear very quickly that this is not a product that it pretends to be, and is instead just some fly by night website setup by a couple of teenagers in hopes of some free cash from unsuspecting visitors.

I doubt anybody would actually send any BTC their way anyway, but in my opinion having hoaxes like this damages the credibility and trustworthy of Bitcoin accepting merchants as a whole.

Could we come up with some way of pruning false merchants like this?

::I think that links which are very clearly scam should not be promoted. However I see two difficulties:
::# It might be hard to see whether something is simply a low budget project or not serious.
::# What is reputable and what not certainly will vary widely. If you want to promote a bank, I'd likely want another neighborhood than if you just try to sell psychodelically designed pizza containing extremely high concentrations of capsain.
::# The more profound issue is that the not-to-reputable looking enterprises might be exactly the ones which bring the stongest kicks to innovation. I am thinking in the term "garage firm". And obviously grandparents will tell the kids some day that the whole bitcoin economy started with alpaca socks, online poker and fancy glass beads.

::My proposal: Create a playground / dockland / bitcoinpunk section which can collect the fringe of the fringe. And let largely visitors decide what they are going to trust. --[[User:Joise|Joise]] 19:21, 4 July 2011 (GMT)

== proposal ==

Separated pages for trading, bitcoin accepting online stores, games, free coins etc.

Talk:Trade

2011-09-25T03:51:18Z

Hartrock:

==Proposed Listing Standards==
I propose the following standards be required for listing on the [Trade]. The listed site must
# Be currently functional (downtime of less than 48 hours is acceptable)
# Be currently accepting bitcoins
# Have clear instructions for paying with bitcoins from the link given
# Prices must be sane within an order of magnitude (non-sane prices indicate that the website has not been updated to match bitcoin deflation)
The standards will help keep the list manageable and easy to use.

This is a talk page, so please sign your contributions. I mostly agree, but the "sane prices" criterion seems a bit subjective ; there is a risk that we exclude goodwilling merchants, who would otherwise be willing to update their prices when contacted. [[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 10:43, 12 February 2011 (GMT)

:Here is an example [http://bitcoin2cash.com/]. When I say "sane", I mean reasonable within an order of magnitude. I moved your other comment to a separate section for clarity [[User:Ptd|Ptd]] 12:59, 13 February 2011 (GMT)

Sounds reasonable. --[[User:Sirius|Sirius]] 07:09, 23 February 2011 (GMT)
Reasonable. What about defining a practice for ordering the list of sites? I've got one to add, so I'll just tack it at the bottom, but it's going to be an ugly list after awhile. Alphabetical? Chronologically ordered by add date?
[[User:JulianTosh|JulianTosh]] 00:19, 10 May 2011 (GMT)

I'd say somewhat unreasonable regarding the clear instructions. A lot of my customers are the types who would get confused if I listed my native currency and Bitcoin side by side. I want to offer Bitcoin for Bitcoin users, but not at the risk of confusing other potential customers and potentially losing sales as a result. As such, I make it possible for customers to switch to using Bitcoin during the checkout process. [[User:Orbixx|Orbixx]] 18:39, 02 June 2011 (GMT)

Every link that does not go to a page that CLEARLY states they are accepting bitcoins should be removed. Try to go to the website Orbixx has added again, there is simply no way to check they accept bitcoins, and I believe they don't actually. I couldn't figure it out. So I think the rules should be that if the link does NOT arrive at a page that says the site is accepting bitcoins, it should be removed. Orbixx, companies can just create a separate page for it, and you link to that page, not simply to your homepage if you think it would be too confusing on the home page.
[[User:Berend|Berend]] 21:21, 2 June 2011 (GMT)

On Exoware.net payment methods are not stated at all until the checkout process; this is incredibly common. It should be evident that we accept Bitcoin because we are listed on this page and there should be no need to plaster it all over some landing page or on the site. As for your belief that "they don't actually [accept bitcoins]", you're welcome to try us - we do. The mere fact that you nonchalantly removed our listing in the first place for apparently not accepting Bitcoin without even getting in contact with us in the first place is ridiculous. Then to come on here after I email you with screenshots showing the page where you can change your currency to BTC and say that somehow you still maintain that we do not accept Bitcoin is preposterous. Do not remove any listings without first solidly verifying your inadequate assumptions. [[User:Orbixx|Orbixx]] 04:01, 03 June 2011 (GMT)

It's not unreasonable to expect a merchant to have a bitcoin logo among the mastercard, visa, paypal, google checkout, etc. buttons that clutter a corner of nearly every website that takes money. If they accept bitcoin, they should add a bitcoin logo there. if they take money, they should have a section that fits the description. it's that simple. no reason not to be able to tell at a glance. [[User:aarcane|aarcane]] 04:54, 03 June 2011 (UTC)

I suggest we vote on this. Vendors who have hidden the fact they accept bitcoin extremely well (try finding it on Orbixx's site) do not deserve to be listed here. We could create a separate page for them (i.e. unverifiable entries). [[User:Berend|Berend]] 22:24, 11 August 2011 (GMT)

I agree that a site that accepts bitcoin must Clearly Say So on any page that mentions payment options, and their front/landing page. Any site that does not say so Up Front, should not be listed as Accepting Bitcoin. How do you verify that they accept bitcoin until you've already selected a product/service, and gone to the checkout page, and Finally see an option for using Bitcoin? This is a ridiculous thing to do. If I only have a Mastercard, and I'm on a site that only accepts Visa, I'd be pretty upset to not find that out until I'm already at the checkout page!! Every site I have EVER used to purchase Anything online says, Up Front, what kinds of payment methods they accept. No confusion. [[User:Krepta3000|Krepta3000]] 17:47, 25 August 2011 (MST)

==Should we put addresses on the wiki?==
We just had some bitcoin address spam. perhaps it would not have happened if we did not put bitcoin addresses on the wiki ? [[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 23:50, 12 February 2011 (GMT)
: Page is now semi-protected. [[User:MagicalTux|MagicalTux]] 08:28, 16 February 2011 (GMT)

Yea i suggest not to put the bitcoin addresses of donation-accepting orgs on the wiki. this opens it up to vandalism in hopes of getting misdirected bitcoins. just link to the relevant webpage of the donation-accepting organization, and that's all. that way also we don't have to worry about the addresses changing.--[[User:Nanotube|Nanotube]] 04:41, 24 February 2011 (GMT)

==Hide Contents of Adult?==
Should the contents of Adult be displayed by default, or might it be reasonable to expect that to be a hidden that requires an action for the contents of the category to be rendered? - [[User:sgornick]] 06:22, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

Should be hidden or moved to another page. --[[User:Sirius|Sirius]] 07:05, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

I'm all for censoring it as much as the community will tolerate. --[[User:Luke-jr|Luke-jr]] 13:27, 23 February 2011 (GMT)

Why hide adult section? They are just links to sites, and section is clearly labeled "Adult". What's the big idea on the censorship? --[[User:Nanotube|Nanotube]] 04:39, 24 February 2011 (GMT)

I suggest do not censor or hide. Consider for example genjix's calm reference to drugs in his presentation. Should he have been afraid and contemplative of censoring or preventing from communicating such things? Such is a kind of debate generally influenced by religi*** motivations. See [[Trade_R]] for adult content [[User:Mizerydearia|Mizerydearia]] 15:04, 27 April 2011 (GMT)

Against censorship of site links. They should simply be labeled as adult oriented and the vagues possible genre references.
[[User:JulianTosh|JulianTosh]] 00:21, 10 May 2011 (GMT)

The problem with listing every site together with adults sites is that automatic scanning software might label your business in the same group. You don't want that to happen, else your legitimate businesses will very quickly disappear from this page
[[User:Berend|Berend]] 21:18, 2 June 2011 (GMT)

The header for the page claims 'Products or services illegal in US or Japan are not fit to be listed here - such links will be removed immediately. Any attempt to get those links up again will result in the account being blocked. This includes pornography and many mind-altering drugs'. As pornography is not actually illegal in Japan or in the US, it should be clarified whether the restriction is the result of an editor attempting to enforce their ideology, a requirement that all porn comply with Japanese censorship regulations (i.e. mosaic over certain body parts - which I suspect fairly few bitcoin-accepting sites actually comply with), or an administrative decision whose force stems from private property rights rather than from .us/.jp law. [[User:Deekoo|Deekoo]] 05:54, 15 August 2011 (GMT)

== Drugs Section Empty ==

The "psychoactives" section appears to consist entirely of dead links. [[User:Ironwolf|Ironwolf]] 03:54, 28 March 2011 (GMT)

I deleted the Drugs section, since Bitcoin is still far too vulnerable to government actions against it -- there are many single points of failure. The most glaring to me is the DNS system -- the bitcoin.org domain could be taken down if the US government wishes to.

:This is a terrible decision. My company was removed because of this decision, and it disgusts me. Not all drugs are illegal. My company operates a physical storefront in the US. We ONLY sell drugs that you can buy at the supermarket down the road. Just because it is a "drug" or "psychoactive" doesn't mean that the government is trying to shut it down. Nicotine is a drug, aspirin is a drug, alcohol is a drug. Lotus petals are psychoactive, and so is chamomile and kava - but you can go into Walmart or Walgreens/CVS and buy them. These are the only drugs for sale. Stop freaking out about it. People have swept our business off this list twice because of this ridiculous mindset. We're a hippy art store - not a head shop or drug market. --[[User:Metagnosis|Metagnosis]] 17:59, 22 June 2011 (GMT)

I apologize to those merchants who may not get as many customers now, but really, it's probably better this way. Anyone who needs to can get a connection by asking around, I'm sure. My goal is only to reduce the "criminal" perception of Bitcoin. [[User:AaronM|AaronM]] 01:18, 27 April 2011 (GMT)

== What is a Notable Website ==

I started accepting bitcoin at http://la.indymedia.org and a couple other sites on the slaptech.net site. What's the standard for adding this to the list of sites? [[User:Johnk|Johnk]] 16:30, 17 April 2011 (GMT)

== New section for services that are not considered "Professional services"? ==

I'm wondering whether it might be advisable to add a section for services that are not really "professional services" as that term is ordinarily used in vernacular English.

For example, I just added a dump-truck haulage service to ''Professional services/Other''; but dump truck haulage is not generally considered a professional service. Ought we to consider adding a new section to the page? [[User:1ECVX6EAk53VER2NH5NKharUUGpfw8iUP6|1ECVX6EAk53VER2NH5NKharUUGpfw8iUP6]] 01:49, 4 May 2011 (GMT)

:i'm a massage therapist wanting to trade bitcoin for massage. what section do i put my services in?
:[[User:zenbunny|zenbunny]] 20:52, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

== donation accepting organizasions ==

perhaps a separate page should be created for them ?
I guess donations do not belong to "trade".
[[User:ThomasV|ThomasV]] 23:17, 5 May 2011 (GMT)

:Definitely. It's a bit sad that there is no place to list all Bitcoin-accepted organizations, particularly smaller non-profit ones since they don't sell anything and the organizations page has a notability requirement. I'll create one if no one objects and/or does it before me. [[User:Blues|Blues]] 20:36, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

I've added RYT (Roll Your Tasks) under 'Productivity' again (has been deleted by user Luke-jr, probably because there is no force to pay for this service). Donations are accepted, but I'm not an organization of any kind. Moreover RYT is an app for enhancing productivity without political or similar intent, beside that I want to give others the opportunity to use it. I think it's good to also give non- or part-commercial efforts a chance to be listed here. If someone wants to have some specific (RYT) improvements, feel free to suggest a deal... [[User:Hartrock|Hartrock]] 03:51, 25 September 2011 (GMT)

== Alternative listings for bitcoin-related directory and merchant sites ==

Because this wiki is censored and not allowing of certain contents or sites, I have set up http://bitcoinsites.witcoin.com/ to allow for all bitcoin-related sites to be posted. Feel free to also use this medium for commenting and reviewing sites as well. [[User:Mizerydearia|Mizerydearia]] 05:28, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

* Since witcoin.com is subject to US and/or Canada law, I would expect it to be censored as well eventually. But perhaps not a bad idea to make an alternative site for the ratings/reviews idea anyway... I won't use it if it's based on witcoin though, since they require paying to comment/rate... --[[User:Luke-jr|Luke-jr]] 18:27, 25 May 2011 (GMT)

[http://payco.in payco.in : bitcoin currency directory] - I've started a links list of my own (I admit I wanted to get my own site, [http://lorna-morgan.com Lorna Morgan], listed somewhere I wouldn't be removed!) I didn't like the design of witcoin ... and Bitcookies seems to be down at the moment. --[[User:Lorna Morgan|Lorna Morgan]] 05:36, 28 July 2011 (GMT)

[http://bitcookies.com Bitcookies] - A community resource to list businesses, events, and classifieds that are related to Bitcoin. The server is privately owned and therefore not subject to any controlling interests. The site does not, nor will it ever have censorship in terms of the types of businesses/traders/websites listed. The site is free to all community members and was developed with funds from my mining operations. [[User:Miner249er|Miner24934]] 16:25, 27 May 2011 (GMT)

== Bloomberg Esque Data Suite: Compiling Transaction info from merchants to measure demand ==

I am included on the list of many who are very interested in seeing bitcoin succeed and want to be a part of that success, but there is one serious uncertainity that is keeping me from getting in: are people actually using their coins for more than just buying drugs and slim jims, and is all of the buying concentrated in one website or product and one consumer demographic? Demand for the coins is necessary for their success. This can be determined by consumption rates and habits. I have perused the website listing, but still feel that information is lacking.

It would be nice to see an economic indicator that acquires data from merchants (and compensates them in bitcoin for their effort) on the dollar value (and perhaps sector) of the bitcoin transactions. We could then weigh a derivative of total dollar amount and number of transactions against the number of bitcoins mined to get a better understanding of the economic health of the currency.

== Require description of changes ==

It's impossible to read this pages's history, because most people seem to forget to:
- use the "description" line when committing a change
- use the "preview" button, and do several changes in a row just because they forgot the label on a link

The first point is the most important, because of changes like [https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Trade&diff=prev&oldid=11246 that one], that suppresses and adds random links without even explaining why. Such changes should be immediately reverted, by policy. On the technical side, one small improvement could be to require the "description" field to be non-empty. People could still write random characters, but that would still be a different action. --[[User:Davux|Davux]] 23:15, 22 June 2011 (GMT)

== Huge chunk of deletions reverted ==

Hi,

I've tracked down a huge set of deletions wich was probably done in error, [https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Trade&diff=next&oldid=11252 see link]. I've reverted each deletion individually because otherwise, new entries would have been deleted.

It's probably necessary to watch out for that. --[[User:Joise|Joise]] 18:55, 29 June 2011 (GMT)

== Vetting ==

I realise this is probably a difficult issue — we don't realistically have the time or work to vet all listed sites — but should ones which are clearly scams be removed from the wiki page, or should each be discussed first before deletion (perhaps, by moderator staff)?

For example: <blockquote>[https://sites.google.com/site/wwjdtd/ Time Warp interactive], is a fiction/nonfiction mmorpg that is in alpha and is selling the game only through bitcoins</blockquote>This, to me, is clearly a scam. Going through their Google Sites website (which is the new GeoCities), it becomes clear very quickly that this is not a product that it pretends to be, and is instead just some fly by night website setup by a couple of teenagers in hopes of some free cash from unsuspecting visitors.

I doubt anybody would actually send any BTC their way anyway, but in my opinion having hoaxes like this damages the credibility and trustworthy of Bitcoin accepting merchants as a whole.

Could we come up with some way of pruning false merchants like this?

::I think that links which are very clearly scam should not be promoted. However I see two difficulties:
::# It might be hard to see whether something is simply a low budget project or not serious.
::# What is reputable and what not certainly will vary widely. If you want to promote a bank, I'd likely want another neighborhood than if you just try to sell psychodelically designed pizza containing extremely high concentrations of capsain.
::# The more profound issue is that the not-to-reputable looking enterprises might be exactly the ones which bring the stongest kicks to innovation. I am thinking in the term "garage firm". And obviously grandparents will tell the kids some day that the whole bitcoin economy started with alpaca socks, online poker and fancy glass beads.

::My proposal: Create a playground / dockland / bitcoinpunk section which can collect the fringe of the fringe. And let largely visitors decide what they are going to trust. --[[User:Joise|Joise]] 19:21, 4 July 2011 (GMT)

== proposal ==

Separated pages for trading, bitcoin accepting online stores, games, free coins etc.

Securing your wallet

2011-06-12T18:52:17Z

Hartrock: /* Mac */ comment to suggested size of encrypted disk image

==Introduction==

Wallet security can be broken down into two independent goals:
# Protecting your wallet against loss.
# Protecting your wallet against theft.

In the case that your current wallet hasn't been protected adequately (e.g. put online with a weaker password):
# Making a new secure wallet, using appropriate long-term protection.

==Technical Background==

Bitcoin transactions send Bitcoins to a specific public key. A Bitcoin address is an encoded hash of a public key. In order to use received Bitcoins, you need to have the private key matching the public key you received with. This is sort of like a super long password associated with an account (public key). Your Bitcoin wallet contains all of the private keys necessary for spending your received transactions. If you delete your wallet without a backup, then you no longer have the authorization information necessary to claim your coins, and the coins associated with those keys are lost forever.

The wallet contains a pool of queued keys. By default there are 100 keys in the [[key pool]]. The size of the pool is configurable using the "-keypool" command line argument. When you need an address for whatever reason (send, “new address”, generation, etc.), the key is not actually generated freshly, but taken from this pool. A brand new address is generated to fill the pool back to 100. So when a backup is first created, it has all of your old keys plus 100 unused keys. After sending a transaction, it has 99 unused keys. After a total of 100 new-key actions, you will start using keys that are not in your backup. Since the backup does not have the private keys necessary for authorizing spends of these coins, restoring from the old backup will cause you to lose Bitcoins.

Creating a new address generates a new pair of public and private keys, which are added to your wallet. Each keypair is mostly random numbers, so they cannot be known prior to generation. If you backup your wallet and then create more than 100 new addresses, the keypair associated with the newest addresses will not be in the old wallet because the new keypairs are only known after creating them. Any coins received at these addresses will be lost if you restore from the backup.

The situation is made somewhat more confusing because the receiving addresses shown in the UI are not the only keys in your wallet. Each Bitcoin generation is given a new public key, and, more importantly, each sent transaction also sends some number of Bitcoins back to yourself at a new key. When sending Bitcoins to anyone, you generate a new keypair for yourself and simultaneously send Bitcoins to your new public key and the actual recipient's public key. This is an anonymity feature – it makes tracking Bitcoin transactions much more difficult.

So if you create a backup, do more than 100 things that cause a new key to be used, and then restore from the backup, some Bitcoins will be lost. Bitcoin has not deleted any keys (keys are never deleted) – it has created a new key that is not in your old backup and then sent Bitcoins to it.

== Making a new wallet ==

In the case that a wallet has been distributed, or stored, in a (real or potential) compromised state, it is wise to create a new wallet and transfer the full balance of Bitcoins to an address contained only in the newly created wallet.

For example, this will be necessary if one created a wallet with a password of 12 characters, as suggested. However a few years have passed and the wallet is now more easily compromised. Just re-encrypting isn't secure. One needs to make a new wallet and make the old wallet worthless (spending the funds to the new wallet).

==Making a secure workspace==

===Linux===

The first step is to make a [http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/add-a-user-on-ubuntu-server/ new user,] so type:

sudo adduser new_user_name

when you get to the prompt 'Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default', just keep hitting ENTER.

Then switch user to the new user. To get to the new user you can use the switch user icon for your system, which on Ubuntu is in the 'System/Quit' screen, or if there is no switch icon on your system you can log out and log back in as the new user. Then click on a folder in the new user to display the file browser, then keep going up folders until you see the new user home directory, then right click to bring up the Properties dialog, then click on the Permissions tab, then in the Others section, set the folder access to None.

For secure browsing, open Firefox, and then go into the Edit menu and click Preferences. Starting from the left, click on the General tab, and in the 'Startup/When Firefox starts' pop up menu, choose 'Show a Blank Page'. Then click on the Content tab, and deselect 'Load images automatically' and deselect 'Enable Javascript'. Then click on the Privacy tab, and in the 'History/Firefox will' pop up menu, choose 'Never remember history'. Then click on the Security tab, and in the Passwords section, deselect 'Remember passwords for sites' and deselect 'Use a master password'. Then click on the Advanced tab, then click on the Update tab, and then in the 'Automatically check for updates to' section, deselect 'Add-ons' and 'Search Engines'.

When javascript is disabled, the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.3.19/bitcoin-0.3.19-linux.tar.gz/download linux download page] will not download automatically, so you'll have to click on the 'direct link' part of the "Problems with the download? Please use this 'direct link' or try another mirror." line.

After you've made your secure new user, to maintain security you should use it only for bitcoin.

===Mac===

You can keep your wallet file on an encrypted disk image. Open Disk Utility, click New Image, choose small size (eg. 100MB (this is much too small for me, see discussion page [[User:Hartrock|Hartrock]] 18:52, 12 June 2011 (GMT))), 128-bit or 256-bit (faster or more secure) encryption and single partition. Save it somewhere you won't lose it (like your Dropbox, Strongspace or whatever), choose a safe password and there you have it. Move everything from ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/ to the image and symlink it back so the app would be able to use it, eg.

ln -s /Volumes/Bitcoin ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin

Don't forget to mount your image before using Bitcoin and unmount after quitting it.

===Windows===

If you are using Windows XP or Windows 7, you can keep your wallet on an encrypted disk image created by third-party software, such as [http://www.truecrypt.org/ TrueCrypt] (open source) or [http://www.jetico.com/encryption-bestcrypt/ Jetico BestCrypt] (commercial). You can probably do the same with Windows Vista (but why would you use that?) or Windows 2000.

'''NOTE:''' You should configure BitCoin in this manner only on computers where you use BitCoin, but do not use that computer to mine. For example, this is a good configuration for a notebook or tablet computer.

Assuming that you have installed the Windows BitCoin client and run it at least once, the process is described below.

To mount the BitCoin data directory on an encrypted drive
<ol start=1 type=1>
<li>Use the third-party disk image encryption program of your choice to create and mount an encrypted disk image of at least 100 MB in size.</li>
<li>Locate the BitCoin data directory, and copy the directory with all contents to the encrypted drive.
For help finding this directory, see [[Securing_your_wallet#Locating_BitCoin_s_data_directory|Locating BitCoin's Data Directory]].</li>
<li>Create a Windows shortcut that starts BitCoin with the <code>-datadir</code> parameter and specifies the encrypted drive and directory.
For example, if you installed Bitcoin in the default directory, mounted your BitCoin encrypted drive as <code>E:\</code>, and stored your BitCoin data directory on it as <code>Bitcoin</code>, you would type the following command as the shortcut Target:
<blockquote><code>C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\bitcoin.exe -datadir=E:\Bitcoin</code></blockquote></li>
<li>Open BitCoin's settings and configure it NOT to start automatically when you start Windows.
This is to allow you to mount the BitCoin encrypted disk image before starting BitCoin.</li>
<li>Shut down BitCoin, and then restart it from the new shortcut.</li>
</ol>

After doing this, any time you want to use BitCoin, you must first mount the BitCoin encrypted disk image using the same drive designation, and then run BitCoin from the shortcut that you created, so that it can find its data and your wallet. :-)

== Locating BitCoin's data directory ==

The [[data directory]] is the location where Bitcoin's data files are stored, including the wallet data file.

=== Windows ===

Go to Start -> Run (or press WinKey+R) and run this:

explorer %APPDATA%\BitCoin

BitCoin's data folder will open. For most users, this is the following locations:

C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\Application data\BitCoin (XP)

C:\Users\YourUserName\Appdata\Roaming\BitCoin (Vista and 7)

"AppData" and "Application data" are hidden by default.

=== Linux ===

By default BitCoin will put its data here:

~/.bitcoin/

You need to do a "ls -a" to see directories that start with a dot.

If that's not it, you can do a search like this:

find / -name wallet.dat -print 2>/dev/null

=== Mac ===

By default BitCoin will put its data here:

~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/

==Backup==

The only file you need to back up is "wallet.dat". Ensure that BitCoin is closed, copy this file somewhere else, encrypt it, and put it somewhere safe. Ideally, you would put this file in two places: one nearby, and one 100+ miles away.

You can use the [[api|backupwallet]] JSON-RPC command to back up without shutting down Bitcoin.

=== General Solutions ===

Your wallet.dat file is not encrypted by BitCoin. Anyone who can access it can easily steal all of your coins. Use one of these encryption programs if there is any chance someone might stumble upon your wallet.
* [http://www.7-zip.org/ 7-zip] - Supports strongly-encrypted archives.
* [http://www.axantum.com/axcrypt/ AxCrypt]
* [http://lrzip.kolivas.org lrzip] - Compression software for Linux and OSX that supports very high grade password protected encryption
* [http://www.truecrypt.org/ TrueCrypt] - Volume-based on-the-fly encryption (for advanced users)
* [http://www.rarlab.com/ WinRar] - Commonly used archive software that supports verification records and encryption.

There is also a list of [[OpenSourceEncryptionSoftware|open source encryption software.]]

==== Password Strength ====
Brute-force password cracking has come a long distance, a previously thought secure password of random [a-Z] [0-9] [!-~] of 8 characters long can be trivially solved now (using appropriate hardware)... The recommended length is '''at least''' 12 characters long. You can also use a multi-word password. [http://www.baekdal.com/tips/password-security-usability The Usability of Passwords]

If you use keyfiles in addition to a password, it is unlikely that your encrypted file can ever be cracked using brute force methods, even 10 years from now when even a 12 character password might be too short.

Assume that any encrypted files you store online (eg. gmail, Dropbox) will be stored somewhere forever and can never be erased.

==== Storage of Archive ====
One of the most simple methods for storing a appropriately '''encrypted''' archive of your wallet.dat file is to send the archive as an email attachment to your own e-mail address. Services like gmail.com use very comprehensive distributed networks that make the loss of data very unlikely. One can even obfuscate the name of the files within the archive, and name the archive something less inviting, such as: 'personal notes' or 'car insurance'.

Another solution is to use a file storage service like [http://www.wuala.com/bitcoin Wuala] ( encrypted, [http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=5817.0 instructions]), [http://www.dropbox.com Dropbox] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_services others], including the more secure [http://www.spideroak.com SpiderOak].

=== Linux solution ===

Linux users can setup cron by running 'crontab -e' and adding this line:

01 */1 * * * /usr/local/bin/backupwallet.sh

This cron line runs backupwallet.sh at the 01 minute of every hour. Remember to add a newline after the last line of the crontab file, or else the last line won't run.

backupwallet.sh:

#!/bin/bash

TS=$(date "+%Y%m%d-%H-%M")
WALLET=/tmp/wallet${TS}
WALLET_E=/tmp/wallet${TS}.crypt

if
echo -n making backup...
bitcoind backupwallet $WALLET
<nowiki>[[ ! -s "$WALLET" ]]</nowiki>
then echo failed
elif
echo done
echo -n encrypting....
! gpg -r myusername --output $WALLET_E --encrypt $WALLET
then echo failed
elif
echo done
echo -n copying to distant server...
! scp $WALLET_E user@myserver.org:~/wallets/
then echo failed
else echo done
fi

rm -f $WALLET $WALLET_E

The shell script:

* Calls bitcoind backupwallet to create a time/date-stamped wallet.
* GPG encrypts the wallet with your public key.
* Copies the result to a backup location.

[[Category:Technical]]

==Restore==

Assuming your backup is recent enough that you haven't used up all of your key pool... restoring a wallet to a new (or old) location and rescanning the block chain should leave you with all your coins. Just follow these steps:
* Quit bitcoin(d).
* Copy your backed up wallet.dat into your bitcoin profile directory.
* If copying into existing profile, delete file ''blkindex.dat'', to make the client rescan the block chain.
And you'll be good as new.

==Erasing Plain Text Wallets==

A good practice is to keep at least two wallets, one as a "current account" for everyday transactions and one as a "savings account" where you store the majority of your Bitcoins.

The "savings account" wallet should be backed up in encrypted form only and all plaintext copies of this wallet should be erased. In case someone gains unauthorised access to your computer (either by physically stealing it or by exploiting a system vulnerability via the internet), they will only be able to spend the coins in your "current account" wallet.

In most operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, simply deleting a wallet.dat file will ''not'' generally destroy it. It is likely that advanced tools can still be used to recover the wallet.dat file, even after it has been deleted.

The Linux '''shred''' command can be used to overwrite the wallet file with random data prior to deleting; this particular copy of the file will then be practically impossible to recover. Using shred (and similar tools on Windows) however does not guarantee that still other copies don't exist somewhere hidden on your HD. That will depend on your system configuration and what packages you have installed. Some system restore and backup tools, for instance, create periodic snapshots of your filesystem, duplicating your wallet.dat.

In Mac OS, clicking "Secure Empty Trash" in the Finder menu will shred the contents of the trash can. As with any OS this doesn't guarantee that there are not other copies elsewhere on your system.

For Windows, the built-in command ''cipher /W'' will shred all previously-deleted files. [http://www.cylog.org/utilities/cybershredder.jsp CyberShredder] can securely deleted individual files.

==eWallet==

Storing bitcoins with an [[eWallet]] provider incurs risks as well. Basically you grant the third party, in this case eWallet, full access to your wallet.

==See Also==

* [[Data directory]]

[[de:Sichere deine Geldbörse]]
[[zh-cn:保护你的钱包]]

Talk:Securing your wallet

2011-06-12T18:48:32Z

Hartrock:

The five paragraphs in Technical Background all say the same thing. --[[User:Mcandre|Mcandre]]

Note: the backupwallet.sh script in the linux section doesn't actually work.
I suspect it is caused by the wiki changing the formatting.
I wrote my own version that uses much more standard shell syntax.

[[User:Wscott|Wscott]] 11:28, 11 February 2011 (GMT)

I fixed the backupwallet.sh script. It just needed a nowiki tag around a conditional statement. -- [[User:Mweather|Mweather]] 23:48, 20 May 2011 (GMT)

The approach for "Making a secure workspace" seems to differ greatly for linux and mac. Why? It seems like if you are going to make firefox secure, which is basically all the linux section recommends, you would want to do that on a mac too. And the recommendation in the mac section to keep the wallet in an encrypted volume with a symlink in the expected system location should be done on a linux box too, shouldn't it, like using truecrypt or something... Am I wrong??? Can someone with advanced knowledge please advise...? Also, if you want bitcoin to run all the time in the background on linux, but you have it set up in a separate user from your main user account, well, you are out of luck? Can justifications and explanations be added to the recommendations, and also I guess some alternatives with pros and cons be offered, for people with different needs and computing situations. Thanks! --[[User:GusGustavo|GusGustavo]] 13:33, 26 May 2011 (GMT)

== Time Sensitivity ==

Is it possible to still send money to my wallet, even if it's backed up and offline? Do bitcoins ever expire if they're not spent, or is there anything bad that can happen by not using my bitcoin client in a long time? [[User:Daniel.benoy|Daniel.benoy]] 23:18, 8 June 2011 (GMT)

== Creating a New Wallet ==

This section isn't helpful; it tells you when to create a new wallet, but not how. I'm a new user, and the wallet was created when I installed the BitCoin program. I will find out how to create a new wallet, and then edit this section so that it actually explains the task that it sets out to explain. :-) [[User:ErgoOne|ErgoOne]] 15:19, 9 June 2011 (GMT)

== Making a secure workspace ==

For me space needed in ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin (Mac) is more than 400MB (!) after having loaded all blocks from bitcoin app. So 100MB is much too small (may be sufficient for just wallet.dat, but then the steps to do had to be changed). [[User:Hartrock|Hartrock]] 18:48, 12 June 2011 (GMT)

Talk:Securing your wallet

2011-06-12T18:43:31Z

Hartrock: /* Making a secure workspace */

Talk:Securing your wallet

2011-06-12T18:42:07Z

Hartrock: