Topic: Best way to store bitcoins safely without a hardware wallet(ledger,etc) (Read 665 times)

Sure, that is truism. A few extra  measures have been mentioned in my previous post.



 But the topic of privacy preservation is the vast one and it cannot be covered by 2 - 3 posts on the single forum. That is why I would recommend you to  snoop through WEB articles. As to TOR, developers say it helps to hide IP and I’m inclined to believe them.



LOL, just knocks it down

Sure, it depends. If user cut off TOR which is part of Tails his privacy  will suffer. It will suffer if he reuse addresses, if he put his addresses on forums, if he has a single output, a lot of "if" exists.  In principle, even  TOR  being turned on might harm if it’s in the  hands of incompetent man . But mrkfdr  didn't seem that and  I guess he understands exactly what I’m saying.


Well mrkfdr has installed it  and asked  the specific questions.  I  gave  the straight up answers. It is not my fault that you got my answers in a wrong way.

Yeah, Tails is good for broadcasting TRXs that are already signed because it is capable to hide your identity. For cold wallet which has the ability  to sign raw transaction  you don't  need   Tails in fact, any  comfortable to you OS (even Windows)  on  air-gapped device is appropriate.

"Just" using Tor doesn't make you anonymous at all.
There are additional measures you have to take to properly hide your identity.

It is not as trivial as you have made it sound in your last post:




Actually, he never asked about anonymity or hiding his identity. Just whether it makes sense using a bootable USB with Tails.

And the answer to that is: It depends.

It is usable, yes. It is slightly better (in terms of security) than an desktop wallet on his main OS, yes.
But it does nothing for his privacy, no.

Depends on the context.

It makes sense in terms of that it works. But it is by far not comparable to a hardware wallet regarding the security.
As HCP mentioned, it is a trade off between usability and security.




You are giving the impression that using tails is sufficient to preserve some degree of privacy. This is wrong.
Tails itself is just a linux distro with some tools installed. They might help you to stay more anonymous than otherwise, but it mostly depends on the user behavior.

Using electrum, you already reduce the degree of your privacy by a lot. Installing Tails and believing that this makes you somewhat anonymous, as you are saying, is not true and creates a false sense of anonymity.

Depends on how you want to set it up and use it...

You can either run it as a "LiveOS", but connected to the internet... in which case, it isn't a "cold storage" setup, but likely to have increased privacy due to Tails/Tor use etc...
or
You can use it purely as an offline, transaction signing setup... in which case you'd need to install "watching-only" Electrum on your normal OS, use that to create unsigned transactions, then boot up "offline" into Tails, sign the transaction, boot back into normal OS and broadcast the signed transaction

It can be done either way, you just need to figure out which option is best suited to your particular use-case. The first one is less hassle, but arguably less "secure"... the second option is more secure, but also more hassle.

You only need to Broadcast Your RAW Transaction once you've created the actual transaction and have the necessary raw TX without connecting the cold wallet to the net.

Thnx Captain !
 Just o make it clear when i want to transfer BTC i have to connect to the network to make the transaction ? it's not a partial sign,air gap approach , right ?

Does this makes sense? using Tails with Electrum on a bootable USB to store Bitcoins and retrieve them occasionally? 

As much as i value your opinion, this has nothing to do with point of view.
It is about terminology.

People refer to the internet as "the web" all the time.
Even if that is their opinion, it is simply wrong and doesn't make it right.

Same applies to wallets.
If you use the most commonly used taxonomy - storage of private keys - you either have online wallets (e.g. software-, web- or browser-based wallets) or cold-/offline wallets (paper wallets, air-gapped setups) and depending on the PoV "hybrid" ones (e.g. hardware wallets, which is quite controversial where they belong to).



Wait.. are you really trying to argue that hardware needs software to be usable?

There is no difference between an offline- and a cold wallet.

"Offline" does not only refer to the internet, but to any communication interface (wifi, bluetooth, ..).
Therefore each cold wallet is indeed an offline wallet and each offline wallet is a cold wallet.




And some users are confused with the concept of computers believing that it is some sort of magic machine.

I don't see any relevance to that topic.
If they simply just disconnect their internet connection, it doesn't make their online wallet an offline-/cold wallet.

Just because their software is running on hardware, it also doesn't make their software wallet a hardware wallet..

Yes, I meant a "cold" wallet. The device will never go online.

1. From the online device take the unsigned file.
2. Sign it in the off-line device.
3. Go back and broadcast the singed file from the online device.

Ages ago the SexCoin community stumbled upon a trader who was creating jewlery with QR codes etched/printed on them for persons collecting payments but not needing to cash out immediately - more practical than being handed cash for services about to begin then being robbed of that cash later on.

https://www.etsy.com/market/qr_code_jewelry

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I'd always be concerned the pipe would be crushed or melt or some other calamity befall it.

Yeah, I do believe that's one way to go as long as you can keep that seed phrase secure.  All it takes is a writing instrument, some paper, and you have your coins stored offline.

I don't think there are any security risks involved before the seed phrase is actually written down, and if there are I'd like to hear about them.  I know there are keyloggers and stuff like that, but I don't think the average person has to worry too much about those.

Yeah, that metal idea is a pretty good one.  I actually have a steelwallet that I got when I bought my ledger, and it's a pretty solid way to store seed words.  Those are way too expensive IMO, however.

Actually, its pretty easy to know...simply check the firstbits balance...if it's still there, the coin is not tampered with. Any scammer would steal the balance asap.

Collectibles are gimmicks to some and treasures to others...market determines true numismatic value...

It is not that trivial to block VPN communication.
It can be masked to almost look like regular HTTPS traffic (assuming you are using your own VPN server).

The most common blocking techniques are by IP and Ports.
Not using a public VPN provider and connecting to an abnormal port (e.g. 443) would already help quite a lot.

Further, to prevent deep packet inspection where the traffic has to be decrypted, using a strong cipher and certificates to not connect to a man-in-the-middle is recommended.




Then just generate a paper wallet.
You can even do so without downloading/using any wallet.

technically true but "physical bitcoin" is the official term used to describe this type of products specifically Casascius coins https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Casascius_physical_bitcoins and it comes from the fact that they have physical form and exactly because they can be traded "physically" and are not meant to be used as wallets for storage.
whether people pealed off the security to reveal the key and claimed their coins doesn't change the nature of this product.

Well, technically they are not a "physical" bitcoin, they are just 10% of a paper wallet generated by someone else (Mike).
When I say 10% it is because the public key is not even fully displayed on the coin, just part of it, and to find your full public key you have to search for it the database about Casascius coins.
Then, unlike a regular paper wallet, the private key is concealed, and only by unpeeling the coin, you can see it.

They are definitely used to "store" coins (private keys) as there are about 44 000 BTC stored on them.
And you can definitely spend them, as about 45 000 coins loaded on Casascius have been redeemed so far (in 2019  about 530 Casascius were peeled, it is 10 a week !).

Finally, it is not a physical BTC, as BTC never move away from the blockchain to become an object.
Casascius coins, are collectible and a way to spend / move / trade BTC  off chain (same as openDime).

VPN/tor isn't banned, the only thing banned is crypto, and I just want to store a sum of bitcoins in a wallet and leave it there for months+ I don't usually use crypto to transact anyways, only holding

Even better, easier and cheaper, is to buy a piece of normal cheap PVC pipe used in waste water systems.
Carve your private key or seed words to that, and bury it somewhere where no-one will be building new buildings or anything in the future. Preferable to your own land or your relatives land

PVC pipe is easy to carve and lasts forever in the ground. It wont rust and metal detectors wont find it. Even house/forest fires are not a problem, because the layer of ground will protect it from heat.

One way to quickly and easily dig it to the ground is to have a battery operated drill and one of those cheap 1m drill bits. Drill a hole to ground, and then push the piece of pipe (if you selected one of those 3cm diameter pvc pipes or a small piece of a bigger pipe.) to the hole, and then just fill the small hole.

You could even dig it underwater in the bottom of a lake or something, where no-one will build anything.

Just save your bitcoin address, so you can always observe and put more coins to that address without needing to dig your private key up.

You can install Electrum, Bitcoin-qt, or another else in your computer or laptop, but don't connect it to the internet if you don't want to use to synchronize with the network.
You can use the other computer or laptop to browse the internet so between your wallet, and the other computer doesn't have any connection.
But it is okay if you install the wallet on the computer which you use to browse the internet.
If you have more money, it will better if you buy a hardware wallet to store your bitcoin, and you can also store your altcoin in the same wallet.

Well, don't lose your device. And you should have a backup.

But the important question (which you didn't answer yet) is how often you want to send BTC.
If it is quite often, you need some form of watch-only wallet to create unsigned transactions.

And here is the difficulty. You need to make sure that you are not leaking any information (i.e. that you install / use that wallet) to your ISP (or who are you trying to hide it from?).

If you don't trust your ISP -> Use a VPN and Tor. (This btw is one of the rare cases where a VPN actually is useful; If you trust your ISP, do NOT use a VPN).
And do not use winodws. Use linux and encrypt your installation. This is important.

Is the problem related to the difficulty of buying because it is illegal or economically?

Economically: buy a USB flash drive, burn an open source operating system on it, and boot from that operating system.
Do not install the parts that require internet connectivity, and remove the physical parts.

illegal : Buy an embedded device that enables you to run an operating system with the lowest possible specifications.

Shopping List:  A form of sheet metal, (galvanised steel etc) an engraver a pencil and ruler and an hour or so.  

Transfer your coins to a paper wallet that you have rolled offline, engrave the private key onto the sheet metal (store in a safe place until needed).  Destroy the paper wallet once you have verified what you engraved is what you intended to have engraved.

(If you know what you are doing you can also acid etch the QR code onto metal (without the clear text) to mask what it is).

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Another one I've read is create a three of four or even four of five etc wallets with the various priv keys stored as above in different locations, one or two can even be brain wallets if you're super paranoid about security and don't care what happens to the coins if anything untoward happens to you.

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Another one I'm investigating is time locked TX which I haven't managed to get working properly as yet, so I can't recommend it.

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I'd hardly call a gimmick silver coin with a sticker over a QR code a secure method of storage. 

In any event, any of the coins that have been "slabbed" with the sticker still intact you would have no way of knowing whether or not the sticker was peeled off, the details transcribed and then carefully replaced immediately prior to encapsulation.  (We'll know for certain one day into the future if someone decides to cash in the funds)

If assuming(that's a BIG if) that your offline device is actually secure, and your private keys aren't possibly leaked one way or another along the process, then you're probably not going to have problems.

It's just that it wouldn't be feasible to spend send out the coins from time to time if you're still planning on making transactions in the future. If purely for long term storage though, just generate a wallet on an offline device(probably on Electrum). Write down the backup phrase. And take note of some addresses so you can add to your stack.

Here's a decent guide on air-gapped devices created by Sowik in 2018: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/guide-secure-air-gapped-crypto-wallet-storage-method-2828437

and yes, it can be tricky if you aren't really technologically literate. Hence why most people are pushing people to use hardware wallets instead.

What could go wrong with having a offline device to store your wallet on? Any risks I should be worried about?

Lately this is how I am doing all the things to protect my privacy (in my territory there are no problems with bitcoin by the way):

I have offline device where my wallet is. I have the watch only wallet and it's using tor connection. Whenever I need to send coin - I simply sign the tx from my offline device and broadcast it from the watch wallet. There are no issue with privacy now, at least for me.

Every wallet does so, yes.
But if bitcoin is illegal in your country, you probably don't want to use a wallet which leaks any possible information about you.

The question is, how often do you plan on using BTC?
If it is just for storage and accumulation, then go with an encrypted paper wallet.

If you need to transact often, use a privacy-orientated wallet. Either something like samourai for android or wasabi for a desktop system.
Do not use windows. Do not go online with your wallet device.

No, it's "illegal" here so no I can't buy a ledger/trezor, so that option is unavailable for me at the moment. I heard many people are using a offline storage for the long term holding though..








What about Electrum? They do have a backup seed when you create a wallet no?

Maybe he lives in a part of the world where $50-100 just for a hardware wallet is considered a huge amount of money and the amount he plans on storing there doesn't even cover the costs of purchasing one. Who knows.
Unless you have an old laptop somewhere that you can use as cold storage as some users already suggested, you are left with the option of creating a paper wallet where you can send your Bitcoin. Electrum would be the software wallet I can suggest you.

Seriously man, while this might not be the answer you're looking for, a Ledger Nano S[1] is around $70 and a Trezor One[2] is around $55. If you don't know for sure how you're going to secure your coins yourself on an air-gapped device, don't complicate things and just invest $50-70 on a hardware wallet. If you don't know what you're doing, there are just so much steps in the creation of an air-gapped device that you could potentially mess up and put your funds at risk.

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[1] https://shop.ledger.com/products/ledger-nano-s
[2] https://shop.trezor.io/product/trezor-one-white

the correct name is "Casascius" and it is not offline storage, it is a physical bitcoin and this type is not exactly meant to be used for storage. they are designed to be used as "collectibles" for those who like having collections such as hobbyist, etc.
they also are meant to have a fixed balance (the balance that was originally put in that key) and remain that way meaning you should never spend from that key (which requires physically revealing the private key) because it makes stop being a collectible.

Why would you not have a hardware wallet ?

You could look at an opendime as a storage media but then you need a safe way to "spend" the coins.
Opendime donb't have backup, so if you lose it, you lose your bitcoins.

Same goes for all offline storage (casacius for example).

Just get a nano S and be on the safe side.

it depends on the update. for example there are times when a bug is found in the wallet software that requires upgrading both online and offline versions. but most of the times, specially for older wallets, the upgrade is not so necessary but not always. for example you can be sure that the new Electrum version (4.0) will have a lot of updates follow its stable release.

so i'd say user has to always be aware of what is changing in each wallet. usually projects have a changelog, maybe a mailing list,... that they can subscribe to.

If you are buying a new laptop, why don't you buy a Ledger Nano S? It is cheaper than a new laptop.

Once you install the wallet in your laptop it cannot EVER be online again.

Unless you have an old laptop to spare, and you are really a tech guy who want to spend countless hours studiying bitcoin and security, there is no reason in doing this way. just buy a ledger nano S. It is cheap and safer.

The above is right and there's another term for an offline wallet which is called cold storage.
I recommend the Electrum wallet if you are going to follow the suggestion above.

You can follow the complete guide on how to make Electrum cold storage you can find it from the link below.
- https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html?highlight=usb

Then you can use https://coinb.in/#newSegWit to make a raw transaction and save it to notepad and save it to USB flash drive to transfer the copy of the raw transaction to your offline Electrum wallet to make a signed transaction.


You don't need to worry about the software updates it will work without any issues based on my experienced.

Yes you can download it and turn off the internet completely or you can download the Electrum installer from other PC and transfer it using USB flash drive.

Assuming I’m gone need to buy a brand new laptop, which wallet do you recommend using? And what about the software updates? After I download a wallet on the laptop cut off all internet going in the laptop?

Use an offline wallet. Never let this device to go online.

Whenever you will need to broadcast a tx:
- Take the master public key, create a watch only wallet using this master public key in a device which is online.
- Create the tx and save it
- Take the saved file in the offline system and load it.
- Sign it and save it.
- Take the signed file in the online system.
Load it and then broadcast it.

You are not going online with your original wallet ever.

Hey,


What's the best way to store bitcoins safely without a ledger/other hardware wallets?

Thanks