Moving from Old Wallet Versions to New Releases: What to Know

I’m stuck with a wallet.dat from way back that hasn’t been updated. If I want to jump to version 25.0, do I need to do something special or just install it? Last version I used was around 23.0, and I thought there was an automatic format update at some point... not sure, but I've heard some talk about extra steps with descriptors now. Guess I'm still old school.

Upgrading from 23.0 to 25.0 should be pretty straightforward. Just back up your wallet.dat first, can’t hurt to be cautious. The descriptors were added back in 0.21.0, and there’s this great article by @achow101 about the benefits. If you want to use descriptors, you might need to start a new wallet and move your coins over. Otherwise, your old wallet should still work with no hassle.

I remember it being around 0.17 when things started to get tricky with encrypted wallets. Honestly, I wouldn’t mess with the wallet file unless I absolutely have to. I’d like to know if sticking with legacy format is a bad idea. What if I generate over 100 addresses? What happens to that 101st address?

Always better to work off a backup instead of messing with the original wallet.dat. In future versions, old bdb wallet.dat files will need upgrading to sqlite before you can load them. Check the proposed timeline for more details.

Here’s a concern for me... If I want to export a private key to use in my phone’s Electrum wallet, I heard the new format makes it impossible to do that. I think individual private key export might be off the table. But the watch-only wallet creation? That seems easier now.

As far as I know, recent Bitcoin Core versions keep compatibility. You should be able to open the wallet without issues. Just remember some upgrades happen automatically, but if you don’t use upgradewallet or migratewallet, might not be a problem.

Okay but what if Bitcoin Core completely stops supporting my 2013 wallet? Can I just run these two commands and be fine?

No way Bitcoin Core will ever totally block access to older wallets. There’s a migration step that’ll always work after they stop supporting legacy wallets. If you open an old wallet later, it’ll prompt you to migrate so you can still use it.

Quick question, kind of off-topic but still relevant: I thought all wallets were HD wallets. So, new ones from Bitcoin Core are HD, but those old ones from a decade ago... not so much, right?

Totally on topic! Actually, HD wallets started with version 0.13.0 from November 2016. It’s been a while since that change.

Before HD wallets were a thing, we had these old wallets with just random private keys. Needed regular backups, and you could lose keys if you didn’t pay attention. It could get messy if you had to restore an old backup and generated fresh keys.