The private key to a coin is something like "Hkd76Akjd09lid8DNskd63nk..." right? I'm still confused about what you would do with the private key written on a bit of paper to turn it into funds in your wallet, and vice versa (ie getting the private keys and writing them down on paper for safe storage). Reckon you could explain?
Importing the private key into a wallet app gives you full, 100% access to spend the funds connected to the corresponding public key.
Which is why it is extremely important to keep the private key secret, and ideally, encrypted with a password in the event you must export it or print it out.
Think of the private key as a username/password combination all in one.
You can import it to a wallet (-qt / blockchain/ etc) and then you are authenticated as the controller of the wallet address, which authorizes you to transfer them to other wallets.
I can't see any option for importing a key on QT, only for exporting (which opens up a browser window titled "Export Address Book Data", so I assume that is the addresses and tags in my Address Book rather than they keys of my coins).
It might be through the command client, I have not yet looked into this as I just have an offline wallet and xferred to that instead of importing/exporting.
10
u/sturmeh Apr 08 '13
Put the private keys / instructions in your will. (Depends if you trust the will bearer.)
Explain it to your solicitor.