WHAT A BITCOIN WALLET HOLDS
A wallet does not hold coins. There are no coins to hold, anywhere. It holds two keys: one you hand out, one you never show to a living soul.
THERE ARE NO COINS
Nothing about your bitcoin is stored on your phone. Your money is lines in a record that tens of thousands of computers each hold in full.
What those lines say is: this amount can be moved by whoever can produce the right signature. Your wallet is the thing that can produce it.
So a wallet is not a container. It is a keyring.
THE TWO KEYS
The public key is like a postal address. You give it to anybody who wants to pay you. It is safe for the whole world to see, and it can only be used to send you money, never to take any.
The private key is your signature. It is the only thing that can move your money, and it never leaves the box. You do not show it to anyone. Not to a website, not to support, not to a friend. Not once.
Bitcoin was built around a signature instead of an account on purpose. There is nobody to ask for permission, and nobody who can freeze your money. Both of those come from the same decision.
THE TWELVE WORDS
Most wallets show you twelve or twenty four words when you set them up. Those words are your private key, written in a form a person can copy down.
Anyone who reads them owns your money immediately and without a trace. Lose them with no copy and the coins stay in the record forever, visible to everybody, movable by nobody.
There is no reset, no support line and no recovery. That is not an oversight. A system where somebody can restore your access is a system where somebody can take it away.
QUESTIONS
What is a Bitcoin wallet?
Software that holds your keys and uses them to sign payments. It holds no coins at all. What it holds is the only thing in the world that can move them.
Where are my bitcoin actually stored?
In the record, which tens of thousands of computers each keep a full copy of. Your wallet holds the key that can move them, and nothing else.
What are the twelve words for?
They are your private key written so a person can copy it down. Anyone who has them can move your money. If you lose them and have no copy, nobody can help you.
Is it safe to share my Bitcoin address?
Yes, that is what it is for. The risk is not theft, it is privacy: an address stays public forever, so anyone who has it can look up every payment that ever went in or out of it.
Can anyone freeze or reverse my bitcoin?
No. There is no account and no operator. That is the same fact as there being nobody to help you if you lose your key.
What happens if I lose my private key?
The coins stay where they are, visible to everybody, and nobody can ever move them again. There is no recovery process of any kind.
SEE IT RUNNING
The wallet is one of the nine parts of the machine on this site: a box with two keys in it, and only one of them ever comes out.
THE PARTS NEXT TO IT
- MEMPOOLWhere a signed payment goes next.
- NODESThe computers that check your signature.
- BLOCKCHAINThe record your balance actually lives in.
SMALL PRINT
This page explains how wallets work. It names no wallet, company or exchange, and it is affiliated with none. It is not financial advice. Nobody connected with this site will ever ask you for your private key or your recovery words.