You’ll know from previous posts that I’ve had trouble using the official Ethereum node wallet. This is the full node downloaded from the official Ethereum project website.
The problem is that you can’t see transactions made to or from your wallet until your wallet has synced with the entire blockchain.
This is easier said than done.
Even using decent broadband, I’m always 100,000 blocks behind. The rate that my wallet downloads at is maybe one block per second.
I’ve been trying for weeks to catchup and without success.
It’s time to cut my losses and write this off.
Luckily, I didn’t have that many ETH in there. I’ve only bought two purchases of 0.5 ETH for a total of 1 ETH.
The first time I noticed that I would have a problem was when I bought the second lot of 0.5 ETH. My wallet wouldn’t show receipt of the 0.5 ETH. The node needed to be up to date before showing the transaction.
I tried to send 0.1 to my Exodus wallet and managed to do so. I tried to transfer the remaining 0.4 ETH that I could see in my Ethereum wallet but this didn’t work.
For now, I’m going to use my Exodus wallet for ETH up to an amount of about GBP 500 and use my Trezor wallet for larger amounts.
The only problem I see for the Trezor wallet is that for ETH, it requires an integration with Myetherwallet.com. This extra step isn’t as user-friendly as I would have hoped for with the Trezor wallet. Why can’t I just send my ETH directly to the Trezor, just as I do with Bitcoin?
This makes me want to try out the Ledger Nano S, which from some research is able to receive ETH directly to the device.
Their website currently says shipping dates start on 30th September! They clearly have more demand than supply.
Takeaway
Anyway. the takeaway from this post is to test any wallet first with very small amounts that you could handle losing should the wallet be unusable. Transfer small amounts and practise sending and receiving. If this doesn’t work or the wallet takes years to sync, then at least this way, you won’t have lost large amounts.