#asknostr #WatchOnlyWallet
What is a use case for a watch only wallet? I understand it's for long term holdings, but does this mean you cannot deposit to it, or withdraw from it? How does this work?
Discussion
You’re just viewing a sum of the addresses generated by the wallet’s xpub. If you want to “watch” the wallets balance from hardware that isn’t tied to your storage method.
This is why sharing your xpub will dox the entire wallet.
Thank you, this helps to clarify.
You can still generate and send to addresses associated with the public key the watch only wallet is associated with. If you wanted to send you would need the private key or hardware associated with it to sign the transaction.
Your public key will just show you the balances and addresses associated with the specific key you exported as watch only.
... If that made any sense. Someone can probably explain it less jumbled.
Thank you, between yours and the other explanations, i think i understand better.
To check the balance.
The private key never sees the internet, but you can confirm transactions sent to the address you are monitoring.
You don't send coins to wallets. I kinda hate how confusing that terminology is and it's the biggest misstep that BTC has going for it.
When you "send" BTC to a "wallet" you are simply signing a transaction that gets annotated and then confirmed on the blockchain that says that xxx address is correct signatory for yyy amount of BTC.
The watch only "wallet" is basically like a temperature display. You've got a temp sensor that the display reads. The display cannot change the temperature outside. I hope I'm explaining that well.
Check the total balance and transactions
Yes you can generate new addresses with it and send to it. I do it all the time
Thank you.
A watch only wallet means you can see your #bitcoin account details but cannot spend from it because it does not have your seed words (private key).
You can generate new receive addresses to send bitcoin to this wallet through your watch only wallet without your seed words.
You can use your watch only wallet to set up a payment but need to use a your seed words to sign/be able to spend. Easily accomplished with a hardware wallet that has no access to the internet.
The hardware wallet communicates with your watch only wallet via camera and QR codes to send the signed payment.
If you're using a Hardware Wallet then any companion application you're using in conjunction with it is operating as a "watch only" wallet.
It's called "watch only" because that is the only permission you are making available to the companion app.
If you punched in your seed words directly into the app, we call that a hot wallet because it has full permission to send Bitcoins out of all the addresses associated with the wallet.
Thank you, that makes sense, helps to clarify.
Yeah and the use case of keeping it on your phone available to you is to generate receive addresses & confirm that you received the Bitcoins you were expecting to.
Remember, if you're accepting payment from someone it's better to use a new receive address generated by your watch only wallet, that way they can't see the address with your main stack in it - yet you can still conveniently accept new Bitcoins into your possession meanwhile your SeedWords & HWW sit in a secure location.
Yes i always use a new address for receiving.
Is there a watch only wallet that communicates with my node at home or do they all use public nodes?
Some 3rd party node programs allow you to setup remote access via tor.
Otherwise, you don't need Internet/public nodes, but rather your xpub file.
If you're worried about being on the go the easiest solution is to carry some screenshots of unused addresses.
If you need to confirm if you have received on the go, then yeah tor or public nodes.