Wallet

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A Bitcoin wallet is a file that contains a collection of private keys.

Bitcoin Qt

The original Bitcoin client wallet file is named wallet.dat and contains[1]:

  • keypairs for each of your addresses
  • transactions done from/to your addresses
  • user preferences
  • default key
  • reserve keys
  • accounts
  • a version number
  • Key pool
  • Since 0.3.21: information about the current best chain, to be able to rescan automatically when restoring from a backup.

The data file for the wallet is wallet.dat and is located in the Bitcoin data directory.

It is intended that a wallet be used on only one installation of Bitcoin at a time. Attempting to clone a wallet for use on multiple computers will result in "weird behavior"[2].

The format of this file is Berkeley DB. Tools that can manipulate wallet files include pywallet.

Armory

The Armory client uses a custom binary wallet format.

Blockchain.info

Blockchain.info use a plain text JSON wallet format documented here. Private keys Keys are stored in base58.

Multibit

Multibit uses the bitcoinj protobuf wallet file.

See Also

References