Topic: Differences between paper wallet and USB flash wallet (Read 177 times)
You could call that cold storage but I'm not too sure.
Ok I am glad we have discussed the minor differences of a paper wallet but really the question in the title is what is the difference between a wallet that is stored on a USB flash drive and once that is probably stored on physical paper. I think OP probably just overlooked the wording and that two questions have been asked but only really one question has been talked about in depth.
Going back to the question itself the only key difference between a wallet stored on a USB flash drive and one that is stored on paper is the longevity of both. USB flash drives have a shelf life and so does paper to an extent but paper will in most instances out live a USB flash drive if it is stored in the correct manner.
If we have two instances of storing a USB flash drive:
1. A USB stored inside a safe
2. A piece of paper stored inside a safe
A piece of paper is unlikely to deteriorate at all inside a safe and the same goes for the materials like ink used to write the seed/private key down. A USB flash drive can unknowingly be deteriorating from the time of purchase. It might be flawed but functional at the time of use. This could mean that despite storing it securely and not using it all that often the components themselves might be damaged and given enough time might be useless. Paper you are unlikely to get the same results and paper and ink can be reviewed frequently without having to plug it into a computer.
Paper is also cheaper so the key differences and the benefits of a USB flash drive are probably outweighed by the unknowns of the components inside that Flash Drive. I have had a lot of flash drives die on me for no apparent reason and therefore I do not put anything that I intend to keep on them unless it is backed up elsewhere.
Going back to the question itself the only key difference between a wallet stored on a USB flash drive and one that is stored on paper is the longevity of both. USB flash drives have a shelf life and so does paper to an extent but paper will in most instances out live a USB flash drive if it is stored in the correct manner.
If we have two instances of storing a USB flash drive:
1. A USB stored inside a safe
2. A piece of paper stored inside a safe
A piece of paper is unlikely to deteriorate at all inside a safe and the same goes for the materials like ink used to write the seed/private key down. A USB flash drive can unknowingly be deteriorating from the time of purchase. It might be flawed but functional at the time of use. This could mean that despite storing it securely and not using it all that often the components themselves might be damaged and given enough time might be useless. Paper you are unlikely to get the same results and paper and ink can be reviewed frequently without having to plug it into a computer.
Paper is also cheaper so the key differences and the benefits of a USB flash drive are probably outweighed by the unknowns of the components inside that Flash Drive. I have had a lot of flash drives die on me for no apparent reason and therefore I do not put anything that I intend to keep on them unless it is backed up elsewhere.
Lol, everyone is giving their own definition of "paper wallet" and they're all pretty much the same.
I happen to like Electrum since it's so easy to create a paper wallet from the seed phrase (or from the private key of a single address). I've never used a USB drive to store private keys on myself, but obviously you could do that. You could think of a million ways to store private keys offline if you have an imagination, and they could all be considered paper wallets.
Security depends on the format of your paper wallet and how you store it. Those are the key factors IMO.
I happen to like Electrum since it's so easy to create a paper wallet from the seed phrase (or from the private key of a single address). I've never used a USB drive to store private keys on myself, but obviously you could do that. You could think of a million ways to store private keys offline if you have an imagination, and they could all be considered paper wallets.
Security depends on the format of your paper wallet and how you store it. Those are the key factors IMO.
When you use the paper wallet you need to manage one private key or several keys separately. Using USB Flash wallet enables you to download any wallet and then manage HD wallet using your wallet seeds.
Paper wallets tend to be a physical method for managing a private key and are recommended for those who want to manage one address for long periods or at least small quantities.
If you want to use multiple addresses in the medium and long term, it is best to use Hardware wallet (100% offline environment) or well manage USB flash wallet with open source cold storage wallet.
Paper wallets tend to be a physical method for managing a private key and are recommended for those who want to manage one address for long periods or at least small quantities.
If you want to use multiple addresses in the medium and long term, it is best to use Hardware wallet (100% offline environment) or well manage USB flash wallet with open source cold storage wallet.
Paper wallet refers to the physical storage of private key(s) which means on a physical medium such as paper, plastic, wood, metal,... depending on the endurance you are looking for. For example for a very long term storage a metal plate would be ideal.
USBs are categorized as digital storage but they can be also categorized under cold storage as long as you never connect it to any computer that is not considered air-gaped. It is not as durable as physical storage though since digital mediums suffer from data loss if not connected to a power source.
Which one you choose depends on your goals, also remember that you don't have to only choose one. A paper wallet could be used for a long term storage (years) but a USB disk could be used to install an Electrum wallet for more frequent access while still being offline.
USBs are categorized as digital storage but they can be also categorized under cold storage as long as you never connect it to any computer that is not considered air-gaped. It is not as durable as physical storage though since digital mediums suffer from data loss if not connected to a power source.
Which one you choose depends on your goals, also remember that you don't have to only choose one. A paper wallet could be used for a long term storage (years) but a USB disk could be used to install an Electrum wallet for more frequent access while still being offline.
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The normal paper wallet like the one generated from https://bitaddress.org do not make use of seed extension (passphrase) which support BIP39, it make use of passphrase which is also usually called password which is used to encrypt the private key, this password is called BIP38 passphrase.You are definitely commenting about hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallet which generate passphrase which can be used through salting as extended word(s). This can also be used as a paper wallet though, but to make paper wallet not confusing, my first comment above must be included before commentimg about HD wallet used in a paper wallet form.
Paper wallet does not simply mean wallet that you print or write on paper sheet. Paper wallet gives you options to extend your seed with passphrase or simply use default option.
Extended words, phrases, etc. has nothing to do with the definition of a paper wallet.
Paper wallets are meant to be keyed into a computer every time you want to inspect the address balance or create a transaction.
The idea is to not use the computer itself as the storage medium but the piece of paper itself, rather than just as an auxiliary copy.
A paper wallet has quite a broad definition and I would think that storing the important information which gives you access to the private keys or a set of private keys would be considered a paper wallet as well. If you're using a BIP39 compliant wallet (or any other wallet which provides a mnemonic), then there is really no reason for you to be using an electronic medium to be storing the wallet files or the seeds, unless you're looking to store the stuff that isn't covered by the seed (labels, request invoices, etc). The data loss on a paper would be far more obvious than on a USB drive, for which you won't know until you open it.
Storing a backup of the wallet on a USB flash drive doesn't necessarily make it a "flash drive wallet" or rather I've never really seen anyone calling it that.
So, we'll be more concerned about the security and the storage medium doesn't really matter as long as it is stored securely and has multiple redundancies. You'll be more concerned about generating the keys securely, which is needed no matter how you backup your wallet. You can do so by making your USB drive into a bootable USB, boot into it and use it to generate a wallet. The benefit of doing so is that you're able to achieve a somewhat of an "airgapped" setup though the environment may not always be as sanitized as you would like it to be. You can, however sign the transactions on it and is arguably more important than trying to determine what kind of terms should you use to describe a backup.
-- I personally don't necessarily consider a paper backup as a wallet. It serves its purpose as a backup but it doesn't function like a normal Bitcoin wallet with all the features but the terminology has more or less been ingrained and there is little point in changing it. Could see an argument if you define a wallet as something that store your private keys, then the terminology isn't wrong.
Also, paper "wallets" may not necessarily be better than your normal wallets. It all boils down to how you generate it.
Storing a backup of the wallet on a USB flash drive doesn't necessarily make it a "flash drive wallet" or rather I've never really seen anyone calling it that.
So, we'll be more concerned about the security and the storage medium doesn't really matter as long as it is stored securely and has multiple redundancies. You'll be more concerned about generating the keys securely, which is needed no matter how you backup your wallet. You can do so by making your USB drive into a bootable USB, boot into it and use it to generate a wallet. The benefit of doing so is that you're able to achieve a somewhat of an "airgapped" setup though the environment may not always be as sanitized as you would like it to be. You can, however sign the transactions on it and is arguably more important than trying to determine what kind of terms should you use to describe a backup.
-- I personally don't necessarily consider a paper backup as a wallet. It serves its purpose as a backup but it doesn't function like a normal Bitcoin wallet with all the features but the terminology has more or less been ingrained and there is little point in changing it. Could see an argument if you define a wallet as something that store your private keys, then the terminology isn't wrong.
Also, paper "wallets" may not necessarily be better than your normal wallets. It all boils down to how you generate it.
A piece of paper becomes a Bitcoin wallet the moment enough information sits on it for you to gain access to your coins. There is no specific definition for paper wallets, for which reason this is how I understand it. The moment there is a private key or a seed written on a piece of paper, you can call it a paper wallet.
USB devices are no different. *.dat files can be stored too, but there are a multitude of other ways to store your wallet on them. An USB providing you access to a set of keys can be called an USB cold wallet.
You may be interested to find out a more general term exists. Cold wallets. The term includes any type of device or material providing you offline access to a wallet.
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Regards,
PrivacyG
USB devices are no different. *.dat files can be stored too, but there are a multitude of other ways to store your wallet on them. An USB providing you access to a set of keys can be called an USB cold wallet.
You may be interested to find out a more general term exists. Cold wallets. The term includes any type of device or material providing you offline access to a wallet.
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Regards,
PrivacyG
Paper wallet does not simply mean wallet that you print or write on paper sheet. Paper wallet gives you options to extend your seed with passphrase or simply use default option.
Extended phrase gives you different wallet and you will need seed and extended phrase to access that wallet. If you lose the phrase, and only us seed to recover wallet, you will recover an empty wallet. It is not the wallet you stored your Bitcoin.
Write your seed from Electrum wallet is better when you create your wallet offline. Better than paper wallets because there are many scam paper wallets which have back doors.
Extended phrase gives you different wallet and you will need seed and extended phrase to access that wallet. If you lose the phrase, and only us seed to recover wallet, you will recover an empty wallet. It is not the wallet you stored your Bitcoin.
Write your seed from Electrum wallet is better when you create your wallet offline. Better than paper wallets because there are many scam paper wallets which have back doors.
A paper wallet is a type of cold storage method for storing bitcoin. Installing Electrum on an offline device is another type of offline cold storage. The name is really not important. Even if you engrave your private key or seed on metal or on a piece of wood, you would still have to call it a paper wallet, because that's the industrywide accepted term. We don't have metal or wood wallets.
But what about if I use electrum wallet offline to generate seed phrase and address, is that not also called papar wallet?
Imho it's even better than a paper wallet, since at the moment of spending you will have change address too, making things easier, especially if you want to spend less than the entire wallet.
Also it's a list of English words, which are easier to write down to paper.
But there's a warning too: Electrum seed only works in Electrum and it's good to know that. Also if you want to be more widely compatible, using offline IanColeman page could be another similar direction.
If I created a wallet using the source from wallet like bitaddress or I use electrum offline to generate seed just like I said above, but I did not save the private key on paper but on flash drive, is that not called flash drive wallet?
The problem is that a flash drive is not a good and reliable option. One bad moment and it gets broken and you lose all the information. Also I don't know how many years it keeps that data. Multiple papers in geographically different places are cheaper and more reliable.
With what I have known, I noticed storing bitcoin private key and address which can be printed or written on paper is known as paper wallet, there are certain website that can be used to generate these private key and address. But what about if I use electrum wallet offline to generate seed phrase and address, is that not also called papar wallet?
If I created a wallet using the source from wallet like bitaddress or I use electrum offline to generate seed just like I said above, but I did not save the private key on paper but on flash drive, is that not called flash drive wallet?
If I created a wallet using the source from wallet like bitaddress or I use electrum offline to generate seed just like I said above, but I did not save the private key on paper but on flash drive, is that not called flash drive wallet?
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