Setup wallet
Runwallet -h to see all available command line switches.
Setup your seed
Wallet is deterministic and the only thing you need to set it up is the seed password.As long as you remember the password, you do not need to backup the wallet.
You can either enter this password each time when running the wallet, or you can store it in a file called
.secret and never be asked to enter it again.You do not need to use a memorable password. Instead you can create a random secret seed, e.g. using a command like this:
cat /dev/urandom | tr -cd a-zA-Z0-9 | head -c 27 > .secretNote: using a password that you cannot memorize, make sure to have a backup of your
.secret file.
Export public addresses
After you setup your wallet in a secured environment, you should export its public addresses.In order to do this, just run
wallet -l and your wallet's public addresses will be written to wallet.txt.Security precautions
The seed password is your entire wallet and the function used to turn it into private keys is double SHA256*, which is pretty easy to compute.That is why it is very important for you to make sure that the password you're choosing will be resistant to brute force and dictionary attacks.
If you choose to use a memorable seed password (aka brain wallet), make it at least 20 characters long, preferably more than 30.
Avoid using words that can be found in a dictionary, as well as using simple sentences, or even more complex ones if they are known.
If you are affraid of forgetting the password and decide to write it down, try to describe it as a puzzle that only you can understad.
Avoid writing down the password as is.
There are claims that brain wallets are not secure because "brains cannot be a good source of entropy".
If you belive that you have such a brain, use a secure random generator to create the
.secret file for you.At the other hand, backups are a week point of the wallet's security, so having a memorable though uncrackable seed provides secure and convenient solution.
Moreover, by choosing a brain wallet you will not have to carry any wallet with you, making it impossible for anyone to see that you are carrying any coins.
If you decide to store your seed in the
.secret file, make sure to protect it accordingly (e.g. have the disk with it encrypted).*) Wallets version 1.10.1 (or higher) support using an optional scrypt function to convert the password into private keys, making your brain wallet far more resistant to bruteforce attacks. See the
scrypt config value (inside your wallet.cfg file) for more info.Importing other private keys
You can import keys from your existing bitcoin wallet, as well as keys generated by other tools (all kind of key/address generators).The key that you want to import must be in base58 encoded format, which looks somehow like
5KJvsngHeMpm884wtkJNzQGaCErckhHJBGFsvd3VyK5qMZXj3hS. To export a private key from the official bitcoin wallet use dumprivkey RPC command. To import such a key into your Gocoin wallet, just store the base58 encoded value in a text file named .others (each key must be in a separate line). You can also place a key's label in each line, after a space.The imported keys will extend the key pool of the deterministic ones (that come from your password-seed). After Importing each new key, you should redo
wallet -l to get an updated wallet.txt for your client.