Proj 13: Local Bitcoin Wallet (10 pts.)

What You Need

Purpose

To set up an local Bitcoin wallet, so you can send and receive Bitcoins without entrusting anyone else with your private keys. https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet Near the top, point to Desktop and then click the link for your OS.

On the next page, you need to choose a wallet. For this project, click Electrum, as shown below.

A pop-up box describes the features of Electrum.

Click the "Visit website" button.

At the bottom of the Electrum pace, click the blue "Download Electrum" button.

On the next page, click the link to get the version for your OS, as shown below.

When you see your seed, as shown below, copy it and save it somewhere safe. If someone gets your seed, they can steal all your Bitcoins. And if you forget your seed, your Bitcoins may be lost forever.

Complete the installation and start Electrum. It should look like the image shown below, with a blue dot in the lower right corner. If that dot is red, your network is not allowing you to connect to Bitcoin nodes.

Getting a Receive Address

In the Electrum window, at the top, click Receive.

An address appears, as shown below.

Getting some Bitcoin

Get someone to send some Bitcoin to that address. If you have done project X1, you can send it yourself from Coinbase, as shown below.

Notice that there is a "Network fee" of 0.001 BTC for the transaction, which is about $3.00 (as of 6-14-17).

In Electrum, the transaction appear at first as "Unconfirmed", as shown below.

Saving a Screen Image

Make sure you can see a transaction in Electrum, as shown above.

Capture a full-screen image.

YOU MUST SUBMIT A FULL-SCREEN IMAGE FOR FULL CREDIT!

Save the image with the filename "YOUR NAME Proj X1", replacing "YOUR NAME" with your real name.

Confirmed Transaction

It will take 30 minutes to be confirmed. When that happens, your wallet will look like the image below.

Turning in your Project

Email the images to cnit.141@gmail.com with the subject line: Proj 12 from YOUR NAME.

Restoring a Wallet

If you forget your password, you can recover your wallet from its seed.

Just rename the "default_wallet" file and restart Electrum. Create a new wallet and you will see an option to use an existing seed.

Sources

Posted 7-13-17 by Sam Bowne