I want to rent dedicated server to run a full node to receive bitcoin for my website. Is this safe if I encrypt my wallets or should I own physical server?
1 Answer
If you need only to receive bitcoins, or better only to check the balance of your wallet, you can setup a read only address that leave no way to send money through this server.
To setup read only addresses there are several command:
importaddress
importmulti
importpubkey
Instead if you need a full node that receives and sends bitcoins automatically, (despite the fact that the encryption is secure) the wallet cannot be encrypted and it can be risky (at least more than having physical possession of the server) and you have to evaluate if the savings of buying a VPS instead of a physical server compensate for the greater risk of theft.
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How i can setup read only address and how i can send money from read only address? why wallet cannot be encrypted in case receives and sends automatically?– obeiCommented Mar 29, 2021 at 15:03
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you can import a readonly address on the target server with bitcoin-cli importaddress <addr>, the address should be generated on another server which has the privatekey to spend btc, if you want to send btc automatically the node must read the privatekey to send btc so it cannot be encrypted Commented Mar 29, 2021 at 15:11
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yes, however the wallet does not need to be created with bitcoin-core, you can use the wallet you prefer, a bitcoin address is always a bitcoin address, however you generate it, you can always import it with bitcoin-core as read only. Commented Mar 29, 2021 at 15:50
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Even better, you could import an extended public key in your web setup which would allow you to generate separate receive addresses for each invoice. The private key should remain on a separate system as leevancleef describes.– Murch ♦Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 16:54