After a few months and finally last night BCH being listed on Coinbase/Gdax, it is time to begin learning how to access our BCH funds!

If you have been following along thus far, you have been keeping Bitcoin in your wallet (core) since the BCH Fork, and that private key currently unlocks BOTH your BTC and BCH.

Before we go downloading a BCH wallet and importing our private key to access our funds, I have 1 step that will cost a tiny bit (tx fee) but will ensure that your Bitcoin funds are safe!

What we are going to do is create a new Bitcoin Wallet (Private Key) which we will then send ALL our bitcoin to. This will ensure the private key which also has the BCH will no longer unlock our BTC, thus preventing any ability for someone to steal it or for us to accidentally loose it.

How to generate a new wallet?

If you are using Bitcoin Core, the process is very easy. Simply shutdown Bitcoin core and navigate to your home folder. Show hidden files and go into the folder ".bitcoin" you will see a file "wallet.dat". DO NOT LOOSE THAT FILE!!! THAT IS YOUR PRIVATE KEY!

Rename wallet.dat to another name and restart Bitcoin Core, you will see it generate a new wallet.dat file (this is your new key). Once the wallet loads simply go to receive and generate a deposit address.

Shutdown Bitcoin Core again, rename the current "wallet.dat" file (DO NOT LOOSE IT) and put back the original wallet.dat file. Restart Bitcoin Core, you should be back at your coin!

Simply go to send, put the deposit address you copied from your new wallet in and enter the full amount of bitcoin your wallet currently has. Click send and your balance should go to 0.00000000 BTC!

Now the last part, shutdown Bitcoin Core again and rename wallet.dat again (you shouldn't need it anymore for BTC but you still NEEEEED this file for BCH DO NOT LOOSE IT). The new wallet file you created simply rename back to "wallet.dat" and restart Bitcoin Core. At this point your old wallet.dat file should only unlock your BCH and your BTC safely secured by a new private key!

I don't have enough space for a full wallet, can I use a light/lite wallet instead?

In theory, yes, as long as you create a NEW private key and send all your funds to a deposit address generated from that NEW key, all your funds will no longer be accessible from your current private key (which remember controls BOTH your BCH and BTC right now)!

Can I just send to an exchange?

Yes, in theory you can, but this is trusted a third party which is not the ideal situation.

Why are we doing all this?

The reason we are doing this extra step is to ensure that even if something goes wrong with BCH (rogue wallet), your BTC funds are still safe since they can not be unlocked using the same key!

I thought replay protection was built in? Why do I need to do this?

Replay protection does not prevent the fact that your current private key WILL unlock your Bitcoin AND Bitcoin Cash. IF you were to download a rouge BCH wallet before doing this step and load your private key in, you will loose BOTH your BCH AND your BTC! This step PRIOR to installing the BCH wallet ensures that your Bitcoin is secured and ONLY accessible via another key that you will NOT be loading into the BCH wallet!

Hope this helps someone, it may seem paranoid, but I believe taking all precautions is what has led to me never have a single satoshi of my funds compromised in my over 4 years of being involved in cryptocurrency!