FAQ

BitcoiNote > FAQ

1. Is the fee in BTCN wallet always 0.01 BTCN regardless of the amount of coins transferred?

The fee can be set up by the user. A higher fee may encourage miners to process a transaction faster. Transaction fee isn’t related to the amount of coins. Naturally, exchanges can set up their own fees.

2. Where to get the wallet from?

Download from GitHub’s releases page (linked on our website).
https://github.com/Bitcoinote/Bitcoinote-GUI-Wallet/releases

VERSION for WINDOWS

Open the ZIP file. It will open in your selected archive manager. Without archive manager it would open in Windows Explorer, as shown in the following screenshot – click “Extract All”:

and then “Extract”:

The folder with the extracted files will now open. Navigate into the subfolder:

Double-click “Bitcoinote.exe” to start the wallet.
After the blockchain was synchronized, you can use the wallet.Please take into consideration the fact that it can take a while for a wallet to synchronize.

 

VERSION for LINUX

Depending on your Linux distribution, things may work differently. You may also have to recompile the coin software. For that, please refer to the README file.
We will assume that you don’t need to do that.
In a terminal, you can extract the ZIP file using the “unzip” command:

Navigate into the subfolder which has been extracted, and you’ll see an executable:

Then you can start the wallet by typing “./Bitcoinote” and pressing Enter.

After the blockchain was synchronized, you can use the wallet.Please take into consideration the fact that it can take a while for a wallet to synchronize.

VERSION FOR MAC

First download the wallet from GitHub:

Then find it in your Downloads and add to Applications.

When you try to run the application (wallet) you may receive the notification that it cannot be opened as it comes from an unidentified developer.

You can disregard that message and still open the wallet. In order to do that, you need to go to your Security & Privacy settings, select tab General and at the lower part select “Open anyway” (next to “BitcoiNote was blocked from opening because it is not from an unidentified developer”).

Then click “Open” when prompted:

Your wallet will start loading and synchronizing. It may take a while.
After it’s done, we recommend that you set up a password for your wallet
and save it in a safe place.

You might also want to create a back-up for your wallet. From the File select
“Backup wallet” and save it in a chosen folder.

3. Do I have to set up the password?

No, but if you don’t, then anyone who can obtain access to your computer will have full access to your coins. We strongly recommend that you set up a password and save a copy of it in a safe place.

4. How to reset the wallet?

For version 2.0.0 and higher, simply use “File->Reset Wallet”. For older versions, this way caused old transactions to disappear – for old versions, the most reliable way is to use “File->Export Keys”, save these keys, and then use “File->Import Keys” to create a new wallet file based on the keys previously saved. You will need to wait for the wallet to realign with the transactions in the blockchain. It is normal that it shows a zero or incorrect balance before this operation has completed.

5. What if a transaction doesn’t go through?

a.Transaction is not even submitted, error “WRONG AMOUNT”, even though balance is high enough: You are trying to spend change from an unconfirmed previous transaction. (Coins are internally stored in differently sized “bills”, and “bills” can be broken only as part of a transaction. Now, when you pay someone and the wallet has to use a bigger “bill” to do so, the change that you get back from the too big “bill” is part of the transaction, meaning that you cannot spend the change again until the transaction was confirmed.) Wait until all previous transactions are confirmed (no red/yellow clock icon next to the amount anymore) and then try again. If it still does not work, try resetting the wallet as described in the answer to “How to reset the wallet” question.
b.Transaction is not even submitted, error “MIXIN TOO BIG” or “TRANSACTION TOO BIG”: You cannot send this transaction with the privacy level that is set. That can happen when you attempt to make a transaction consisting of a large amount of small “bills” (output from previous transactions) at once, for example from mining revenues. You can try decreasing the privacy level and/or sending a smaller amount. If you have this problem often, try enabling the background optimization in the settings and keep the wallet running in the background.
c.Transaction is submitted, but not written into a block for a long time (no timestamp displayed): If the transaction is like this for less than an hour, it can be still a normal state – only when a miner somewhere takes your transaction and puts it into a block, you get a timestamp displayed here. However, if this takes longer (or, after 72 hours, changes to a cancelled/failed state), then you most likely ran into the problem described below at Question 5.d.II – see explanation and possible solutions there. Note that you cannot cancel a transaction – you have to wait until it either succeeds or fails.
d.Transaction enters status “Cancelled” or “Failed”: This usually happens in one of the following two cases:
I.Your wallet somehow got out of sync with the blockchain. A strong indication for this is that you seem to be unable to send any transactions anymore, even very small ones. The solution is to reset the wallet as described in the answer to “How to reset the wallet” question. In most cases, previous transactions were displayed as “Failed” even though they had actually succeeded, and therefore any attempt to spend money didn’t work because part of it had already been spent. After export and re-import, the wallet should show the actual wallet saldo again.
II.Your previous transaction was not handled by any miner in the last 72 hours. (If you are not sure if your problem is this one or the previous one, you can try resetting the wallet anyway, and if nothing has changed on your end, then it is confirmed that no miner picked up your transaction) At this point you can spend the money again because your transaction was discarded. It can happen with transactions concerning high amounts, which can happen because of a high privacy level and/or – more importantly – spending a large amount of small “bills” (e.g. outputs from mining rewards) in one large transfer. Miners get a reward penalty when they are submitting larger-than-average blocks, which is why it can happen that a transaction is simply not worth being included by any miner (if the penalty would be greater than the transaction fee). We will address this problem on a protocol level in the future, but for the time being, the solution would be to try: a) spending less money at once (splitting a transfer into smaller payments), b) decreasing the privacy level by several steps, c) increasing the transaction fee. Enabling background optimization in the settings and keeping the wallet running in the background should reduce the likelihood of this problem re-occurring.

6. What if transaction gets cancelled?

See the answer to Question 5.d.

7. How can I cancel transaction?

You cannot. Once a transaction is signed on a ledger, it cannot be removed or erased by anyone.

8. Will the history of transactions disappear if I reset the wallet?

No. If it does, try exporting and importing keys instead, as described further above.

9. What if I lose my pc/laptop? Will I lose my wallet?

Yes, unless you created a backup of the wallet file somewhere and/or wrote down your keys. You can use “File->Backup wallet” to create a backup file, and you can use “File->Export keys” to get your keys in a format that you can write down or print.

10. Can I mine BTCN directly to the exchange wallet?

From our end, nothing would prevent you from doing so, but exchanges usually don’t support this. Please check with the relevant exchange directly.

11. How to create a wallet?

When you first start the GUI wallet application, a wallet will already be created for you. You can then further create a password to secure your funds (make sure to keep a copy in safe place).
If you want to create another one, you can use “File->Create Wallet”. If you created or opened another wallet and you are not sure how to get back to your original one, look in “File->Recent wallets”.

12. What level of anonymity should I have?

Usually it’s fine to keep the default level. In certain conditions, especially when your transaction does not go through, you may have to decrease the privacy level or send smaller amounts (keeping the privacy level high). Technically, the privacy level represents the number of mixins, as described below.

13. What is a mixin?

It is a decoy signature in the ring signature. BitcoiNote uses ring signatures to hide the real initiator of a transaction, which work by only proving that someone out of X people authorized a transaction, without allowing to find out who it was specifically. The mixins are the decoy signatures of other people who are added to this ring signature. With 5 mixins, your signature is one among 6 (yours + 5 mixins) used to sign the transaction, so it becomes a gamble to try and trace back whose coins are spent in a transaction and where those came from. Note that transactions become a lot bigger when the number of mixins is increased. Relatively high mixin values can cause problems in sending the transactions because miners will not want to handle too-big transactions due to the fact that they get a reward penalty for exceeding a certain average block size.

14. What does it mean when mixin is too big?

See the answer to question 5.b

15. How can I mine BTCN?

Click the “Start mining” button in the wallet. You will then start mining using our default pool. If you want to use a different pool, you can change the mining settings accordingly. For details please check our Medium article:
https://btcn.ws/FAQ-medium-minig

16. Can I open multiple wallets at the same time?

With the GUI wallet, no. But you can easily switch between recently used wallets using “File->Recent wallets”. If you are using the CLI wallet, nothing prevents you from running several instances with different wallet files.

17. What are the recommended pools?

We encourage you to mine via your BTCN wallet but if you want to try a different pool, you can find the list of recommended pools at our website.

18. Do you have a mobile app?

Mobile app is included in our roadmap.

20. How to get in touch about business proposition?

Please contact us via support@bitcoinote.org

21. Do you run any airdrops?

All current airdrops are listed at our ANN thread at Bitcointalk forum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2660296

22. How to update the wallet before the hard fork at block 178500?

Download new wallet version and install/use instead of old one

23. How to Buy BTCN?

24. How to Buy BTCN in the Express Exchange?

  • You need a BitcoiNote wallet to receive your coins. If you don’t have one, please download the software and create a wallet first.
  • Enter the amount of BTC you want to spend. We will calculate the amount of BTCN you will probably receive. This calculation is done in real-time and is based on the exchange market prices and fees.
  • Next you need to transfer your BTC funds to the displayed wallet. If you use a mobile Bitcoin wallet, you can scan the QR code to speed up the process.
  • Then, please wait until the process is finished and you received your BitcoiNote!

25. How much time it will take to get my BTCN from the Express Exchange?

We will process the transfer instantly in most of the cases, but it may be required to wait for confirmations in case you do a very large transaction or send your transfer with an extraordinarily low BTC fee.

26. Does the BTCN trade in the Express Exchange are fixed or can be vary?

The BTCN amount you see is locked for 3 minutes. If the transfer is completed within that time, you are guaranteed to receive exactly the displayed amount. Otherwise, the amount you receive may vary from the approximation displayed here, because the market may have moved in the meantime.

27. How can I check my order status in the Express Exchange?

  • You can use the order ID to view the status of your transaction here https://exchange.bitcoinote.org/#checkStatus, and you can identify the BitcoiNote transaction with it too.
  • Plus, you can bookmark the status page or copy the order ID and store it in a save place in order to get back to the page anytime.
  • Or save the PDF with your order details