Questions on Bitcoin Core Wallet Encryption and Backups

Gotta say, encrypting your wallet is super important. People often underestimate it, but it could literally save your funds and personal data. I have some specific questions about encryption in Bitcoin Core, just need clarity.

Totally agree with you there. So, the first thing, Bitcoin Core encrypts the wallet.dat file with AES-256, right? But does it encrypt the whole file?

So actually, it encrypts the key material, not the entire file. Each private key gets encrypted using a random master key with AES-256-CBC. The metadata stays readable, so you can still use your wallet when it's locked.

Gotcha! What about if I GPG-encrypt the wallet.dat file separately? Will that totally lock me out of using it?

Exactly, if you GPG-encrypt it, it locks you out. You need to decrypt it before Bitcoin Core can access it. No native support for it.

I think the lack of a solid paper-backup format is kinda lame. Has Bitcoin Core's team recommended a physical backup method yet?

No official support for that, unfortunately. They do recommend encrypting wallet.dat, but for physical backups, you need to handle that on your own.

That’s a bit off-putting. Seems like a manual process. I’d rather have a standardized way to do backups.

Honestly, digital backups make me nervous. I've heard that if you have backup in three different places, it's usually safe. But I prefer keeping it on paper.

Yeah, I also think paper backups are better. What I do is export private descriptors in JSON, then GPG-encrypt that file and print the encrypted cipher.

That cipher looks complex though. What if I wanted to do paper backups with QR codes instead?

That's possible! You could take the descriptors you get from your wallet, encrypt them, and then convert them to QR. Sounds like a cool experiment.

So to clarify, if I started a native wallet in Core and use my passphrase to encrypt it, that would be enough, right?

Yeah, that should give you a solid layer of security. Just remember to keep the physical backup safe.

What’s the best way to store the wallet.dat anyway? Do most people still keep it on digital drives?

A lot of folks still use digital media, but there's always the risk of hardware failure. Better to diversify your backups!

True that! But I've heard about M-Discs, they say they’re good for long-term storage.

Definitely interesting, but always keep checking on your storage solutions. Tech is changing fast.

SSD is good, but its life can be short. And HDDs aren't foolproof either.

Exactly, don’t think that pricey SSDs are a magic fix for backup. Even they can fail pretty quickly.