Bitcoin Core Wallet Review: Features and How-to-Use Guide

This is the official Bitcoin wallet. It functions directly in the Bitcoin network and it is a useful and comfortable tool for people that hold this cryptocurrency.  It is mainly referred to as an official one, because it is part of the network as an implementation. Many speak about it as the core software that most of the processes run on. Being so, the Bitcoin Core wallet requires a bit more than a basic technical knowledge to operate with. Moreover, it is one of the safest places to keep your assets. 

I can assure you, that any type of users will learn here about this technical wallet in details. The article covers a comprehensive Bitcoin Core tutorial, pros, cons, functionalities and capabilities.

01. Bitcoin Core Features & Fees

This software wallet is a full node client in the BTC network itself. All your funds are stored directly on the blockchain, which offers stability and high level of protection. You can reach Bitcoin Core as a GIU (graphical user interface) or through CLI (command line interface). Having that in mind, the wallet is hard to hack. The clean user interface navigates you smoothly through every action required. What is more, every transaction made with the Bitcoin Core wallet is fast and in most of the cases with a lower fee, thanks to the SegWit (segregated witness – more on that in a bit) support.

The wallet makes frequent BTC payments easier than ever. The addresses you use on a daily basis can be saved as a form, containing the recipients’ public key – no more wasting time entering the long code. Well, those files remain confidential, which makes such functionality a needed plus. The single file backup option is explained in detail later on. Bitcoin Core wallet is an amazing application, existing as a huge blockchain implementation client. Stick to this guide and become virtuoso in handling every aspect of it.

Operating System Compatibility

There are wallets developed for dealing with one or more cryptocurrency assets. Bitcoin Core can be used only for BTC. It is one of the most secure single asset representative in the crypto world. To install it, you’ll need a system with at least a 1 core CPU, 2GB of RAM and 210GB of hard drive space for downloading the blockchain. What is more, it basically runs on every operational system with the following parameters:

Transaction Fees

Bitcoin Core is part of the network itself. This opens a lot of options for fee adjustments. With this wallet, you can do that on your own from the software. There is a sliding scale. You can regulate it based on each transaction priority or even put a custom amount of your choice. When preparing for sending coins, you will see a field including a slider, which allows you to commit fee adjustments and even shows how many blocks there are, before your transaction goes through. 

Who and how the fees are estimated? This is done by the wallet, according to the average miner fees from the previous blocks. Here you need to be extra cautious. In case you place a low fee, you risk the transaction never to be forwarded to the block. If something like that happens, you will get your BTC back. This will not happen immediately, it can even take several days. Be wise and don’t tamper with the fees too much.

Create an Address

The address is automatically created by the Bitcoin Core wallet. You have full control over the key pair.  Make sure you store these addresses on a safe place, away from people you don’t trust. Bear in mind that when doing that offline, the attacks and hacks are minimized.  

Send and Receive Assets

Go to “Send” – the recipient’s address must be typed in the “Pay to” part. If you have saved addresses, just click “Contacts” to the right and there you have them all. In case you want to add new, set an address description at “Label”. It will be added after the transaction is done. At the “Amount” section, you can type anything, but be cautious with the too small amounts (e.g. less than 0.001). They are almost impossible to process. In interesting software feature is the lacking BTC after each amount, but the number itself must be written with “.”. Check everything several times before pressing “send”, because this action is irreversible. The dropdown menu next to “Amount” box shows the unit. It is recommended to set it on BTC (1 is for a full Bitcoin and 0.5 is for half).

When you do the opposite thing, receiving BTC, just send your Receiving Address to the other side of the deal, which will be doing the sending. Bitcoin Core offers a faster way of doing that, by letting them scan your QR code. 

Specific Functions

Bitcoin Core is a full node wallet and client to the Bitcoin network. You can interact with the blockchain through the debug console window. It can be found in the Help menu. This debug window is useful for the advanced users with the useful information in it for the connected peers, network statistic, current number of unconfirmed transactions and many more. What else the console show:

• Enter commands and get information directly from the network and other nodes.

• By typing “help” a List of all commands can be viewed with the needed arguments for each.

• Geeky users can work with the console in order to make everything connected to with the GUI interface, but with CLI and even more.

Possible Issues and How to Avoid Them

Stuck Transaction

Bitcoin Core gives the opportunity to easily remove a transaction and then resend it with a higher fee. This can be done in two ways:

-abandontransaction

It works only with 0.12 wallet version or later. Open a debug console and type in abandontransaction . The last part represents the ID of the stuck transaction.

-zapwallettxes

In case this first command didn’t work, or your Bitcoin Core wallet version differ from the required ones, use this startup option. You need to choose it when the instructions of the wallet menu ask you for one.

Wrong Wallet Balance

In order to find the reason for that, try these actions:

If not synchronized – the wallet can show you how many blocks have been processed. This info is showing in a pop-up box after going with the mouse on the check mark in the bottom right corner of the opened Bitcoin Core. This information should match the latest block height in separately loaded block explorer.

If synchronized – open the Bitcoin Core wallet with -rescan option. When this doesn’t work, double check the address supposed to receive the coins – File/Receiving addresses. After that, in case you notice anything missing, restore from the latest backup.

Wallet is Empty

When this is the case, you might have pressed the reset button from Settings/Options/Reset Options. This way all of your wallet’s data has been reverted to default. Better check if that is the case from Help/ Debug Window/Information tab. Then, follow the path to your directory from the Datadir folder. In case there is no such thing, you might have used a custom one which is now gone and caused that problem. If you had created a custom directory everything would have been tracible. Do that by starting the Bitcoin Core with the command -datadir=<path>. Here the path field is the is the way to find your directory.

Bitcoin Core on Social Media

The reason for the lack of community and social media channels is the anonymity of BTC and Bitcoin Core wallet’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto. The team running the wallet still post and inform the users for everything happening with that blockchain client. They use the following social channels: