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In other words when I make another transaction but I only have the original backup when I restore the backup does it only show the amount from my original transaction or will it be updated to the latest transaction if I've made several transactions since my back up?
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You just need to backup your private key or your 12 words nothing else
The whole network keep a full backup of all your transactions
If your wallet make new bitcoin address for each transaction you need to keep a backup of your new private key as well
This answer applies to some wallet software, but certainly not everything. Please qualify what you're talking about. – Pieter Wuille – 2017-08-25T01:29:31.647
@PieterWuille No Pieter you are wrong it doesn't matter which wallet you are using you JUST need to take backup of your private key or 12 words and nothing else and when I say nothing else I really mean nothing else only private key is important and with private key you can recover your wallet and all your transactions – John Kotkin – 2017-08-25T06:03:22.883
If you have all private keys, you can recover everything. But not every wallet has just a single key or phrase that everything is derived from. Many older implementations generated new keys all the time, for example. Furthermore, your keys cannot recover unconfirmed transactions. – Pieter Wuille – 2017-08-25T06:40:24.687
@PieterWuille If your wallet is old you should stop using it immediately, normal wallets have basic features like 12 words or master private key and if your wallet doesn't follow BIPs it's not safe to use it, a normal wallet have master private key and all other private keys will be generated from the first private key – John Kotkin – 2017-08-25T07:17:31.507
bip-32 - https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki and bip-39 - https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki, if your wallet doesn't follow these you should stop using it
I strongly disagree you should stop using Bitcoin Core (which only uses BIP32 if the wallet file was created after version 0.13). Also, I wrote BIP32. Please, just clarify in your answer that it depends on the wallet. – Pieter Wuille – 2017-08-25T07:29:49.793
It depends on the wallet software you are using, and also whether you are using an HD wallet or not. (E.g. is your backup a mnemonic phrase, or a file containing individual private keys?) Can you add these details to your question? – Nate Eldredge – 2017-08-24T05:49:12.707