Topic: Best way to store BTC (Read 340 times)

Hello, cryptofans!
I'm not a newbie to crypto and co. I'm also not a pro, but i think i have medium experience with crypto topic at all! One thing i really can say is that i have lost my funds (mostly BTC,BCH,and BCH) more than one time!
Scam-attacks, Ponzi-Schemes, forgotten passwords passphrases and so on. All in all i lost ~ 0.1 BTC (at the momentan price - ~ 2000€), i guess! But now i use a HW , SafePal HW1, and i have to say this thing is quite genious! It's black, light-weight and pocket sized, it's still easy to use and also have a little display! I like this stuff... 
I also have one piece/1 unit that is brand-new and never used by anyone. It's sealed, and i would sell it. If someone search for a cheap and unused hardware wallet, write me a PM and imagine of the price!
Stay safe and take care! Peace!
Greets - Bye!

The best advice I have read so far.  Diversifying storage of crypto is safer than keep all of them stacked in one place. You could use your electrum wallet to transact daily or as when needed, but it shouldn't stop you from exploring other wallets and sharing your funds into these new wallets. I don't need stress on the huge security advantage, but remembering and keeping safe your key phrases and passwords is the most important when using a wallet.

If you don't want to use hardware wallet due to reason like don't want to spend then try using Electrum and I believe you can create a new wallet offline or online doesn't matter and just copy the address and then send the funds into it then your good to go. The thing is that it is you who will make your wallet safe and what the post above said that the device could be compromised so, it's only natural to think that no matter what you do is that the device could be in compromise that's why hardware wallet is what you should do but as I have said there are alternative to use without cost.

No matter how safe or secure a desktop wallet like electrum is, they are not really so safe since the devices they are kept in can get compromsied pretty easily these days if the user is not very careful. If there are more than one users, it is never recommended to use a desktop wallet.

Hardware wallets would be the best shot for storing Bitcoins or any cryptocurrencies for long term.

How did you figure out how to use the Electrum wallet? Was it through reading the instructions or maybe watching a video tutorial? Well, you can learn how to use a hardware wallet just the same. There's really not much difference between the two, and using a hardware wallet ain't rocket science.

If you plan to hold a large amount of bitcoins for long term then hardware will definitely play a big role here. But in this case you have to buy a hardware wallet which is somewhat costly. So if you want to hold a small amount of bitcoins then electrum wallet is enough to keep your bitcoins safe.

Holding an asset on an exchange means leaving your funds in the hands of others. So of course it is better to use non_custodial wallet in this case.trezor, ledger, electrum is a suitable wallet in this case

  Thanks bro. But for more understanding not everyone know how to use the hard wallet, that's why person make use of the elecctrum wallet. But u can educate us more on hard wallet cause even I don't have idea on how to use hard wallet.

I hope this link could be of help to what you're actually looking out for, the link contains lots of different kinds of hardware wallets with which anyone can choose any convenient for him for safe keeping of his BTC. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--5282364

Many recommended about best way to store Bitcoin trough hardware wallet, I think many people misunderstanding about hardware wallet is place for saving Bitcoin not for purchasing based on OP question. First if you still beginner and do not know any people or trusted seller in your country you need create with local exchange market and deposit your local currency money there.

After deposit success you can invest or store Bitcoin trough your local exchange market, later you can sent to hardware wallet or keep saving in local currency exchange market for saving your Bitcoin fund. I think good ideas and keep securing when your Bitcoin assets saving in hardware wallet not in exchange market account.

Electrum is surely a good wallet, but Exodus is close source and I would never recommend any one to use it.
Also take note that electrum can be used as a cold wallet as well. If you can't use a hardware wallet for any reason, you don't have to use a hot wallet.

Just don't store in an Exchange or you don't have full control to make withdraw your funds or restrictions.
If you want to store your bitcoin invest in security in bitcoin too if you don't have a budget yet go for the Hot wallets still with the electrum or Exodus. We highly preferred to use the Cold wallet or the hardware wallets to make sure your funds are safe.

It is ok to use electrum if you do transactions more often, I use electrum desktop wallet as my go to wallet.
For holding a longer period of time you need to buy a hard wallet, you can do your own research on this before purchasing one.

An interesting point is that the OP has already once been interested in a similar question, and we can say that he received several full-fledged answers from competent people. But after suddenly waking up after a while, the OP was again interested in his problem.
OP, what brings you to this question? Owning wallets, in and of itself, implies the competent storage of seed phrases and passwords, and you, as a person interested in all the advantages of wallets, should be clear on this.
Are you not the real owner of the account?

Here are a few methods to store Bitcoin securely for the long term:

Hardware wallets: Hardware wallets are physical devices that store your private keys offline and are considered to be one of the most secure ways to store cryptocurrencies. Some popular options include Trezor, Ledger, and KeepKey.

Cold storage: This involves creating a paper or physical wallet, where you can store your private key in a secure location, such as a safe or a secure deposit box.

Multi-sig wallets: A multi-sig wallet requires multiple signatures to access the funds, making it more secure than a traditional wallet. You can set it up with co-signers, so even if one key is compromised, the funds are still safe.

Regardless of which method you choose, it's important to follow security best practices, such as keeping backups, using strong passwords, and enabling two-factor authentication.

A more appropriate adjective to describe it is: arbitrary. You can't produce randomness, humans aren't capable of doing that, it's proved. What you're doing is thinking that you're being random, and that's why it seemed to you.

Whatever is deterministic isn't purely random, and neither are CSPRNG (I haven't studied the field, but I guess). It's more of a philosophical topic. I'm sure the human brain functions deterministically, though. If you were forced to create a sentence within a minute, the first thing that would come to your head would be product of a very strange algorithm.

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As for the OP: the best way to store bitcoin is in an air-gapped manner.

In some very rare situations, you may be right.  Machine generated random passwords are not necessarily always safe.  You never know how random random can be.  You can click Generate and it can bring you a sequence of 16 identical characters.  But then you have a brain and can see patterns, so if you see a pattern you skip the newly generated password and re-generate until you get one random enough.

I would argue coming up with your own password is a decision as bad as generating a Brain Wallet always was.  Your brain sees patterns and I think most of the things we are doing are actually patterns too.  This makes me believe we are even thinking in patterns too.

I tried coming up with random passwords out of my mind too.  While at a first glance they seemed random, I soon realized there were a few things that went wrong.  First of all, I realized that I was only mainly using less than half of the alphabet in my 'random generation' of passwords.  Then I realized many of the sequences came from actual words.  I would have 'S' coming up first in my mind, write it down, then I would think of '@', write it down next to the 'S' and then, involuntarily, I would think of 'd' as the next character.

That leaves me with the sequence 'S@d', which I could transform into 'Sad' from the English vocabulary.

But then I realized I was doing this not so random generation.  Which led to the great idea of moving forward to using an actually randomly generated password.  You can do this in so many ways if you do not want to rely on machines.  The even bigger problem is that if we popularize this idea of 'you can produce your own password randomly', there will be many who will fail and will end up having passwords like tH1si$aGo0Dp@s$w0RD which is obviously not a good and secure choice.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

Ledger/Trezor
Airgapped device (computer/phone)
Steel plate

I dont see any problem with using Electrum because i've been using it for lots of years and never been hacked or really have those loss of coins.
The thing you should really be minding about is on how to store those keys out from other peoples attention and awareness.
Dont store it on a place where it is connected into internet or somewhat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VawkuLS3G8

Electrum is an open-source wallet and there is nothing hidden from the users. Just because someone got hacked and lost his fund doesn't mean there's a problem with electrum.
If your device is compromised or someone has access to your seed phrase/private keys, it's not electrum's fault.

Aside from the desktop wallet (Electrum, Wasabi, Samourai). The other best options are hardware wallets and paper wallets. If you don't want to spend then you've got two choices, a paper wallet, and a desktop wallet. As for hardware wallets, you have to spend to buy the wallet, the device itself but treat it as an investment for the security of your asset, bitcoin. As for the choice, the two most common have already been mentioned:

• Ledger
• Trezor

If you happen to choose this option, you're the one that will generate the 12/24 recovery words. By any chance that the wallet is delivered to you and there's a preload seed or recovery words, don't use it as the seller will just retrieve any deposited balance there and that's the scam part where newbies are vulnerable to.

You appear to be a old forum user. So, given your familiarity with Electrum, I should assume you are knowledgeable about wallets. Open source hardware wallets, however, are the safest option. It doesn't matter if you hold for a long or short time. It is actually completely safe and secure up until your seed is not compromised. Therefore, in addition to picking the safest wallet, it's crucial to secure your private keys or wallet seed. Spend more time on the forum to gain more knowledge.

Electrum is a pretty good thing but looking at the state of things now it looks like some people are starting to lose as is the case with @Jullerz12 I've been hacked (Electrum 4.3.2 ) so indeed right now there will probably be some people who are a bit skeptical about this.
At the moment I'm also still using electrum because I don't have a hardware wallet yet. I have wanted to order several times because in my area it is still a little difficult to get it and Ecommerce is also still a little hampered in shipping to my area so I still keep my assets in electrum but for this year I will try to buy a hardware wallet and I also suggest the same to you.

Hardware wallets are the perfect solution for now but if you still can't afford one then electrum is actually still good enough to store your assets.
The most important thing is to be careful in taking care of your computer when using Electrum because there could be things that you don't want.
But a suggestion if you really want to feel comfortable, then you should consider Hardware Wallet even if you do have to spend a budget but it's not a problem as long as you are comfortable.

Long term I would keep my seed phrase and private keys offline, maybe with hardware wallets (Trezor, Passport, Bitbox, Keystone, etc.) or by using airgapped devices like laptop.
Than you can combine that with any open source wallets like Electrum or Sparrow wallet, and create multisig setup to make everything more secure.

The cold wallet is the safest option, obviously. But a non-custodial wallet is a pretty good option if you just starting and don't have much BTC. Just keep your seed phrase written on a list and hidden safely and you find a good wallet.

Hello, an important tip that is missed in this topic: divide your balance into two parts and store it in different places.So if you lose one, you will have a second option.You can lose a cold wallet or anything can happen to it, but copies of all passwords and keys should be written on paper at least.Don't keep everything in one place ever.

It is obvious that people do not still understand that the safety of their wallets depends on how they handle their wallets. It is not all about the type of wallet that you use in storing your bitcoin but how you keep your wallet safe by safeguarding your private key and phrase. Many wallets have suffered hack from hackers as a result of little mistakes from the wallet holders. No wallet is guaranteed %100 secured but the security depends on you.

If you are thinking of exchange, you should do well to remember the phrase " not your keys,not your coin"  exchange are not much safe these days as they suffer hacks.

It is not about the wallet, but how you use it.

One could use electrum on an old desktop which they do not use any longer and do not connect to the internet at all. If they securely generate their keys on it and back up their seedphrase, maybe with an additional passphrase, this would be more secure than just opening electrum on your regular mobile and creating a wallet, and could be as secure (or more) as a hardware wallet.

How you back up your seed, How you access your wallet to transact, how you interact online all contribute to the security of your asset.

- Jay -

Have you tried Bitcoin Core yet?
https://bitcoin.org/en/download
There are so many advantages to Bitcoin that almost all Bitcoin users recognise them, and I'm no exception.
You can read about Bitcoin Core for yourself here. link

If you want to be secure, you need to spend a little money to buy hardware wallets such as Trezor One, Trezor T, Ledger HW.1, Ledger Nano S, Ledger Blue, KeepKey.
For all types of bitcoin wallets, I recommend visiting the Bitcoin Technical Support board.

For small transactions, I prefer Blue Wallet.
Regarding Blue Wallet, you can discuss in this thread [Tutorial] BlueWallet - Bitcoin Wallet Discussion

The best way to store BTC securely for the long term would be on an airgapped device that wouldn't ever be connected to the internet for any reason, but it is kind of difficult to set up for a complete newbie and they may make mistakes while setting it up, but if everything is done correctly, it is the safest method.

Hardware wallets have to be my second option of safest ways to store BTC for long term, it is kind of easier to use than setting up and storing your BTC on an airgapped device, so if you don't know how to correctly store your BTC in an airgapped device, choose a hardware wallet.

Longer more effort-ey answer: actually read about it and decide for yourself. https://cryptosec.info/wallets

Short answer: buy a Ledger/Trezor hardware wallet.

From your your details it is clear that you are already familiar with Electrum wallet which is high usable wallet for Btc . Actually Electrum wallet is beneficial for those who need daily spending of BTC. As you alread mentioned that you want to hold BTC for long time so I will recommend hard wallet to store BTC. Any cold wallet is not safe for storing long term.
Ledger is best option for you to store which is full secure and no risk at all to store for long term. Trezor is also best one as mentioned by Kiakia. I am using Safepal Hardwallet to store my coins and I think it's also secure to store BTC. You can use any of Hardwallet according to your need .

The best way to store Bitcoin safely for long term is by using a hardware wallet, this is highly recommended for newbies but if you are a daily spender of Bitcoin just stick with Electrum wallet on your smartphone, hardware wallets are more secured and far more reliable, the device is always needed to access a transaction.

Make sure you buy a open source hardware wallet like Trezor.

Hello all BTC veterans.

Apart from electrum wallet,

Please provide suggestion as how to store BTC securely for long term.

Thanks