Topic: Bitcoin offline wallet suggestion (Read 681 times)

Thanks, I have no  misconceptions  regarding to the wallet types and just wanted to emphasize that is is better to make difference between "offline" and "cold"  wallet. Yes, cold wallet = wallet which is offline (more precise definition is in one of my above posts) , but not necessarily vice versa. Such situation  when "offline wallet" ≠ "cold wallet" (there are plenty of them, Armory is not a single example) can be described by the concept of "wallet in offline mode". So it's better to not equate offline wallet and the cold one. I've been dealing with the  ignorant people who were thinking they have cold wallet once router goes offline and their client shows  "offline" - message.

Sorry, but there's something in between. There are   a hot wallet which is  sitting on online computer and capable to both sign and broadcast transaction, the cold wallet (on air-gapped device) with the   function to sign transaction but not to broadcast it and the wallet in offline mode (holding  public  keys solely but on online machine) and the ability to broadcast trx but not sign it . The latter wallet is in between and such hierarchy is more understandable, for myself  at least.

Nope and nope


Read carefully what this wallet says - "create from an Offline/Watching-Only wallet to be signed by the computer with full wallet". Deciphering for you - Offline/Watching-Only wallet is a hot wallet running in offline mode on online computer that is capable to create the raw transaction  to be signed by full wallet running on air-gapped machine. The full wallet  running on air-gapped computer = cold wallet. So you wanna me to to turn all thing upside down. But I'm refusing to do that. Period. Bold.

If the private keys are not stored on a completely air-gapped system with no interfaces (wifi, bluetooth, etc..), it can not be considered an offline wallet (and neither a cold wallet).
So there is still no difference between those two terms.



See above.
If a wallet either:
1) has been generated on an online device
2) is at some point online
3) is not completely isolated

it can not be considered an offline- or cold wallet.
There is no offline wallet which does not meet the criteria.

A cold wallet is an offline wallet. This includes cold-wallet setups and paper wallets.




Sure, there are people who think that when your computers goes offline for an hour, it can be considered an offline wallet.
But this obviously is wrong.

Yes. A standard hot wallet.



Yes. A standard cold-/offline wallet.



What you are describing here is a watch-only wallet.
This has nothing to do with "offline mode". This wallet is run on an online computer. That's far away from being offline.

This is a watch-only wallet: A wallet which contains the master public key to derive public keys / addresses and to create unsigned transactions.

Why anyone would call that an "offline mode" is beyond my imagination.

But now i understand where your confusion comes from.
What armory means with "watch-only/offline" is to create a transaction on the watch-only wallet and use the offline wallet to sign it. That's why there is "offline" in the security-tab for this setup.
The phrasing is pretty bad.


I hope this cleared out any misconceptions you had regarding wallet types. If you still have any further questions, feel free to ask.

So ?
How is that related to the fact that each cold wallet is an offline wallet and each offline wallet is a cold wallet ?




"hot wallet running in offline mode on online computer" 
This doesn't even make sense.

You can not run a hot wallet in "offline mode" on an online computer.

There are 2 options:
1) It is a hot wallet. Then an "offline mode" itself does not exist. Even if your PC is offline for a specific timeframe, it still has nothing to do with an offline wallet or so-called "offline mode". It it is stored on an network-connected device, it is a hot wallet.
2) It is an offline wallet which means it is stored on a device which will never be connected to a network. In this case it has nothing to do with a hot wallet.




Yes. And another term would be: offline wallet.
If your private keys are not on an always-offline and air-gapped device, this is not an offline wallet and not a cold wallet.


I agree with you that armory did phrase that quite ambiguous.
However, by pure logic..
Either your private keys are stored on a device which is connected to the internet / a network (even if only for a short amount of time): Not am offline wallet, not a cold wallet.
Or, your private keys are stored on an offline device / not connected to any network: Offline / cold wallet.

There is nothing in between.

So, what exactly is the difference in your eyes ?
If a devices goes online, it is not an offline wallet. And also can't be called "offline mode".

What is the difference according to you ?




And that is exactly what an offline wallet is too.
Your definition of a cold wallet now exactly is the definition of an offline wallet.

the question is already answered and now you are just giving bad advice.
by cutting off your internet you are not really increasing your security, being offline means using the wallet software on an "airgapped" computer which is a system that has never been connected to the internet during its existence and will never be connected to the internet.
additionally an important step was skipped here which was verifying the signature of the software that were downloaded in this case Electrum which could be considered more important than going offline.

Easy way is download electrum wallet, then cut off your internet, generated address, write down you electrum seed in paper and keep it safe place.
what next you can do publish your address only.

my assume HammadAli haven't bitcoin yet, so don't need to move his bitcoin. as I know paper wallet recovery private key only, not seed.

Ledger wallet has multi cryptocurrency too.

Paper wallet would be the best bet for you in this case if you generate it properly as said above. To know more about Generating paper wallet properly and securely, you can check this thread- we had a long ddiscussion there- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/generating-a-paper-wallet-securely-5198310

I've always believed in the good old cold wallet method where your coins are kept offline and every time you need to send a transaction or receive it you just bring that wallet online for a few minutes, do your thing and disconnect it again. I've been doing it for many years and technically, as long as you keep your storage machine clean and don't browse the Internet with it, there's no way to get hacked or infected. Even if you had some hacker trying to break in, your machine isn't online for long enough to allow anyone to take control.

There are many wallets we can use to store our bitcoin or other cryptocurrency and one of the most secured wallets to use is the hardware wallet, I suggest to us the Trezor, it can store so many cryptocurrencies compared to other wallets.

Take a look with this thread for more information: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/general-bitcoin-wallets-which-what-why-1631151

You can buy hardware wallet but you will still need to move your coins into the hardware wallet which requires internet connection, or find Bitcoin paper wallet, they are more secured than others, you will have to safeguard your recovery seed though

I actually never heard the terms being used in a different context.
Whenever i heard cold wallet it absolutely meant offline wallet and vice versa.

A Wallet operated offline is an offline wallet and a cold wallet.
There is nothing in between.

Either it is completely offline or it is not.
A wallet which partially is offline, is neither an offline wallet nor a cold wallet.

Whether and how the device has been used prior to serve as an offline/cold wallet doesn't matter for the terminology.
Cold wallet = wallet completely and always offline = offline wallet.

If we are talking at that level, you also have to consider that it IS possible to infiltrate an completely air-gapped system.
Regardless of whether it ever has been online or not.

And additionally, the hardware supply chain can be a huge problem.
There are multiple points in the supply chain where your hardware can be manipulated (your hardware wallet or motherboard, CPU, etc..):
Chip design, preperation of the masks, IC test and packaging, PC assembly, vendor, distributor and anywhere in between.


With these considerations, you should keep in mind that every system always can be compromised.
You will never reach absolute security. All you can do is to minimize the risk.

If you plan on storing a few millions worth of BTC and are telling everyone you own that much.. yes. Maybe use a brand new PC to be a little more on the safe side.
If that is not the case, you practically don't gain much.

I expected it is considered standard to reinstall a new OS when setting up a cold wallet setup. This might not be the case.
However, you can definitely use an older computer (which has been online) as a cold storage medium for your crypto.
Just install a new fresh OS and don't go online with it. Remove all interfaces for it to be air-gapped and you are pretty much fine already.

You don't need to use a device which absolutely never has been online.

A wallet completely operated offline, is a cold wallet.
It does not have to be a wallet marketed as a cold wallet (e.g. armory).

You can use whatever form of storage you like. As long as it is completely offline, it is cold storage.

This includes armory, core, electrum as well as a paper wallet, a mobile wallet or any other kind of software (or even hardware) wallet.
The crucial point is that the generation and the usage has to be completely offline.

There are many wallets on Bitcoin offline but it is usually up to us which one to use I think Bitcoin is a better hardware wallet than an offline wallet so we can use it both offline and online The chances of being hacked here are very low. Our bitcoins will be much safer I usually use a hardware wallet and are reliable.

If you want to be secured from online attack vectors, you need to choose an offline (or semi-offline) type of wallet.

A paper wallet is probable the more secure one, if you:

• know how to properly create it offline on a clean machine
• know how to properly spend from it on a clean machine

The disadvantages are that generation and spending from it can be quite a hassle. Especially for people who don't do this often.


A hardware on the other hand has the advantages:

• better usability
• easier setup

The disadvantage is that it is not free. But you will have an easier time setting it up and using it.

Both of them are kind of secure against online attacks.
If you are regularly spending coins, i'd recommend you a hardware wallet.

Choosing the best cryptocurrency is really important for every person in the crypto world. It will make our money safe from hackers. The offline wallet is the best wallet to use compared to other wallets.

Choosing the best crypto wallet for you will depend on you, if you are holding many different cryptocurrencies, you may use the Trezor, I suggest Trezor as the best offline wallet, I've been using this wallet for almost  5 years and good thing is that I don't have any experience about hacking.

If you plan on using that wallet occasionally, I bet your 'paper wallet' would eventually get imported to a software wallet like Electrum. If that's your plan using a hardware wallet should be better. The risk of being attacked through clipboard malware is still there but there's no need for you to expose the seed/private key. But of course, as mentioned above, there are many attack vectors including but not limited to fake wallet apps. So, whatever your choice is, watch out for anything suspicious.

the security is not only provided by the wallet type you use, but security is actually gained mainly by the way YOU use such setups. for example paper wallets aren't secure on their own, you have to make a lot of effort to make them secure (offline air-gaped system, a good trusted tool to generate key, encryption, proper backups,...). this effort is less with hardware wallets but it still exists.

I want to know about any wallet for windows where security is the first priority and breaking in through Internet should be difficult. Paper wallets can be good for it or hardware wallet?

The title of the thread is "Bitcoin offline wallet suggestion".
The OP states "[...] I want to know about any bitcoin offline wallet [...]"

And you link to a topic called "Best altcoin wallet" in the altcoin section including a list of all kinds of wallets for altcoins ?

Posts like this are a prime example for the use of a demerit button.

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@OP
There are multiple kinds of offline storage options. It all depends on what exactly you want or need.
They all differentiate in usability, cost, security and maintenance.

The most relevant options are

• Paper Wallets
• Hot-/Cold Storage Setups with 2 devices
• Hardware Wallets (kind of cold wallet; but not completely)

If you could describe your actual use-case a bit more closely, we would be able to give you better suggestions meeting your criteria.

There are many offline wallets that you can use, but always be careful when choosing the left one because there are still many offline wallets that is not trustable because of being prone of some attacks by the hackers, or those wallets that are not really secured. Always do a well research when trying some offline wallet or even online wallet because research and having knowledge is the best things you will have to secure your money.

If you want a list of good and trusted offline wallet you may visit this thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54366883

Paper wallets are good but they will depend on us No matter which wallet we use whether offline or online, no one can hack our wallet if the wallet's private key is protected. If anyone knows the private key, there will be no benefit in using the offline wallet and it will be stolen. In addition to paper wallets hardware wallets are better than offline wallets.

If you're asking this question, you probably don't fully understand how cold storage works, so here's a link to a good guide about it: https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html

You can do this with any wallet that allows you to sign raw transactions, input and export transactions as files, and preferably allows you to create QR-codes of signed transactions, so you can just scan them with a phone and broadcast using a mobile wallet like Android Electrum.

Theoretically this setup can be pwned by some very sophisticated malware, but so far there was no reports of such malware in the wild.

What you need is paper wallet, this is the only offline and most secured wallet I know, no internet connections, all you need to safe guard is the private key or Mnemonic seed of the offline wallet

Having an "offline wallet" but then you're planning on connecting the device to the internet pretty much defeats the purpose of an offline wallet.

But seriously though, depending on how literate or non-literate you are in terms of computers, if you want a wallet that's secure enough but you're still planning on making transactions, go with a reputable hardware wallet. With a hardware wallet, your funds won't get hacked even if you connect the hw wallet on a virus-infected computer because the private keys don't leave the device enclosure. Purely offline wallets are pretty much just used for long-term holding.

Or.. don't use any website to create a paper wallet and therefore reduce the amount of attack vectors by a not marginal number.

Creating a paper wallet offline without any website/javascript is not as hard as people may think.

Just boot a live linux distro on an offline computer, use the inbuilt openssl library and the inbuilt RNG to generate a private-/public keypair and the address. That's it.
If you insist on using a master seed or mnemonic code as a paper wallet, that's a few more steps, but still easily manageable.
I really don't get the trend of using websites to create a paper wallet. This is so much more riskier (e.g. JS library buggy, JS code buggy, malicious code, ... ).

Ok, this might not be a "offline" wallet in every sense of the word, but it is a safe cold storage and it is "offline". Go to this site : https://www.bitaddress.org and create some paper wallets. Make sure you do this with the network cable unplugged and no wifi access to the computer. The site has a script that can be run, whilst you are not connected to the Internet.

Here is a step by step manual to create relative safe paper wallets with this site --> https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-wallet/paper/

The process to get access to those coins and to use them again, is a bit cumbersome ....but your coins will be relatively safe if you use the above method. Keep small amounts in these wallets, because nothing is 100% safe and also make several copies and store it in different locations. 

Bitcoin core is one of the wallets they develop and honestly it is not fully developed by satoshi there are many developers who contribute to building the wallet.

If you want to use a wallet offline there are many options but if you want to stay using Bitcoin-qt well, there is a guide that you can follow how to make a simple offline wallet with Bitcoin core. You can follow it from the Bitcoin wiki below.

- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_secure_offline_savings_wallet

The safest wallet to date is the Hardware wallet that is designed with the best security and can be used while Offline or online.
The most important thing is your vigilance to maintain the security of the wallet.
whatever wallet you have if you are not vigilant then the wallet can be hacked easily. All systems are not perfect, all have their own weaknesses.

What is very important is the Private Key which must be protected and stored in a safe place, not affordable by online, only you know.

Well in my opinion hardware wallet are the safest as they are offline untill you bring them online. If you are looking for sotware wallet then download either Exodus or Atomic desktop wallet and keep them offline.

I have been using the Atomic wallet on my desktop computer for HODLing my crypto assets. I donot use my desktop quite often as I am more on my laptop or tablet.

If you plan to use any of the above desktop wallets then remember to always upgrade them to the latest version whenever you are online.

We do not even know certainly if Satoshi still owns any Bitcoin, if any of the old high-balance BTC addresses were/are his .. or if he's even alive anymore. but the best guess would be that Satoshi has used Bitcoin Core.

There are lots of options out there and your question is very nice in my opinion. Well done for looking for wallets without any third parties involved!

My personal suggestions are: Electrum for PC, Mycelium/Electrum for Mobile or, the best one of all, Hardware Wallets (I personally have a Ledger).

There is no safe wallet out there if you do not use them the right way though. Although hardware wallets made me feel the safest, they aren't if you do not take care of the basic but crucial steps such as paying attention to the transaction details, making sure the shown address is correct etc.

By "offline" usage I believe you are talking about airgapping a computer/phone in order to complete transactions on it completely offline. Again, this is NOT a no-risk zone. Don't you think that by airgapping a PC you'd be 100% safe!

If you would like to use an airgapped PC, you could go for Electrum. Here is a very quick tutorial on how to set up your Electrum wallet for this matter.

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If you are quite new to Bitcoin, which I assume you are, I highly recommend you to first transfer $5-10 to the wallet and test all wallet functions out to avoid large losses. Once you get used to the wallet, go ahead and store your little pieces of the Crypto King in it. One more friendly advice: don't give anyone your master seed/mnemonic phrase/private key(s) and better triple-check an address or the details of a transaction than be sorry. You might waste a minute on checking if the transaction details are correct, but maybe you're going to prevent the loss of significant amounts.

I meant is there any offline wallet which was built by Satoshi Nakamoto. In addition to it where Satoshi has stored his bitcoins? In an offline wallet? If yes then which one?

Chances are very low if you are not connected to the internet because you're not capable of downloading a fake app that can contain malware or trick you which might steal your info or you'll be asked to fill up any sort of form/login form including your private key. The usual hack that I've read is the wrong, fake, and scam websites or apps that have been downloaded.

It's still a matter of how you will keep your private keys with the wallet you have chosen while not being connected to the internet.

While it is not likely any and all wallets are hackable.

It would be incredible to do it. But generate a correct private key import to your wallet and the address is accessible .

No one has conclusively done this on a cost offline wallet and shown proof they did. But it could happen one day.

I don't know what you mean by "includes no third party", but this might be what you are looking for: https://bitcoin.org/en/wallets/desktop/windows/armory/

I believe that other wallets have offline modes, but I don't which ones -- maybe Electrum?

Hello. I want to know about any bitcoin offline wallet which includes no third party. And can that wallet be hacked if I don't input any kind of malicious file or connect the device to Internet?