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Topic: how does paper wallets work? (Read 138 times)

member
Activity: 77
Merit: 10
January 03, 2018, 04:54:08 AM
#3
Paper Wallets are an offline cold storage method of saving cryptocurrency. It includes printing out your public and private keys on a piece of paper which you then store and save in a secure place. The keys are printed in the form of QR codes which you can scan in the future for all your transactions. The reason why it is so safe is that it gives complete control to you, the user. You do not need to worry about the well-being of a piece of hardware, nor do you have to worry about hackers or any piece of malware. You just need to take care of a piece of paper.
member
Activity: 1064
Merit: 22
January 03, 2018, 03:22:24 AM
#2
Paper Wallet: print your address to a paper, print it and save it somewhere safe where no one but you can find it. You can print it as a code or an IR code.

I think only the paranoid care about paper wallets. However, if you really think about it, if your actual device (PC or cellphone) is compromised, it really makes no difference because you are still going to have to print your wallet and when that keylogger takes a screenshot of your code, it is still compromised.

TLDR; paper wallets' security depends on your device security. They are tedious if you have multiple coins. Use them only if you are paranoid. Get an open-source app to save your important details, like "KeePassX" if you want to use paper wallets.

I suggest to make life easier for yourself. Get the original coin wallet, fortify your device by reading about security.

PS: Windows and android are not secure. You need to do a lot to make sure you are protected from snooping. Look for an audited open-source firewall as a start to block any communication to your PC and gradually start allowing the programs you need to communicate with the outside world.
newbie
Activity: 2
Merit: 0
January 03, 2018, 02:36:57 AM
#1
im not clear on how exactly paper wallets are practical. if i want to invest in multiple currencies i have couple of choices: i can keep my coins on exchanges which is unsafe but lets me respond to the market very quickly, i can download and sync a wallet to my machine or i can go for a paper wallet. but how exactly does that last option work? how come https://walletgenerator.net/ can give me a wallet for almost every coin there is, i'm not that much into technical apsects, but they cannot possibly all have the same algorithms. but even if the site is legit and i get my paper wallet for some random coin, how do i later check if the money is there?
TL DR: how do i check a balance of my paper wallet for a random coin (not BTC, LTC or ETH you know what i mean)
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