Topic: How safe is Bitcoin really? (Read 2387 times)

you can using offline wallet like bitcoin-core, electrum, etc and you can get full access to your wallet without worrying banned, server down, phising, or etc 

but you must caution against trojans like bitcoin stealer, because bitcoin stealer trojan will be able to know your bitcoin information that you have

i'm very often using blockchain wallet to store my bitcoin and i think it's pretty safe to use it and i never had a problem from it

Since every single BTC users holds copy of BTC blockchain, I really do not see a way to change all these at the same time to fake some transaction.

So I would say, bulletproof safe.

For me bitcoin is +oo safer than paypal... They block your account for stupid reason but with online wallet anyone here got his wallet blocked?
Besides there is cold storage way safer..
For confirmation i don't think so, if you have your transaction unconfirmed then it will appear on your wallet after few days.

Transactions will never be able to stay unconfirmed forever. Every transaction goes through eventually, but have in mind that if you pay really low fees or not fees at all, it may take a lot of time. I once did an experiment and sent a 0 fee transaction, only to find out it took 6 days to confirm. It may be longer now. Dont recommend it at all.

Split your BTC or altcoin on few wallet.
Both online and offline. Although online wallet more riskable from hacker but it's quite good to put small amount of our money into online than just using 1 offline wallet address.

Bitcoin is secure, but it depends how do you use it. Online wallets could be compromised by hackers but normal problems with online wallets are unsecure passwords (or people that uses always the same password, and registered on unsecured web-ponzi). You can secure online wallets with any 2factors system, it will be more secure.
If you have large amounts of Bitcoins its better a cold storage: Trezor, Ledger or a paper wallet.

use paper and pen wallet multibit you can get the sure that the wallet would be hacked if you dont post anywhere the codes

Am I considered as stupid even this one place hold my bitcoins offline and not online and if hacked, the hacker cannot find nothing or only few satoshi? Or even if this place will replace my bitcoins if those "were lost or stolen as a result of a breach of the physical security, cyber security, or as a result of employee theft" of the this place (which is an online wallet)?

I don't think so. If I store my bitcoins in this kind of place (even it is ONE place and not more than ONE) I consider myself very smart.

Don't forget that everything can be hacked. Once it somebody created, there would be someone who would be able to hack it, I am sure. So it is like a bank, it would be stupid to put all your savements in one place and hope that it's 100% secure and nobody would touch it except you. I recommend you to use both offline and online wallets.

Any online wallet/bank can be hacked and it's easy for hackers but not for a lay man. It's better to use wallets that require authorization by 2 or more account holders/users to withdraw the bitcoins or wallets like Xapo which require me to enter an OTP while logging in the wallet. It's not easy to get the PWD and the OTP of a person's mobile number to hack a Xapo wallet but there can be extreme cases.

With regards to transactions that aren't confirmed, the transaction is just not counted as there are users who have faced this and they instead try the double spend method to recover their coins else the coins are just stuck. No clue when such transactions get cancelled by the network.

If an online wallet is hacked that doesn't mean that you can loose for sure your bitcoins. Depends in which online wallet they are stored. I use Coinbase and this wallet keep up to 97% of customer funds stored offline. So even if hacked the hacker will have almost nothing (if will have the possibility or the chance to find those 3% bitcoin remain online). This is the first thing. The second is that no one from the part of wallet (employee, manager, owner or whatever it will the human kind which work with Coinbase) have no possibility to touch my bitcoins. According to Coinbase Blog of October 29, 2014 with the title "Introducing Multisig Vault - You Can Now Control Your Own Private Keys On Coinbase":

"Our new Multisig Vault gives the customer complete control of their own private keys.  Coinbase has no ability to move funds (which means you are safe from Coinbase being hacked, going bankrupt, or anyone seizing your bitcoin).  It also means that you as a customer have much greater responsibility in storing your backup key securely.  If you lose this backup and forget your multisig password, Coinbase cannot help you recover your bitcoin.  For this reason, we only recommend this feature for advanced users."

I don't use this Multisig because I am not an advanced user. But even the hacking of the wallet itself is very hard to be made. In my account can be entered only after the put of the code which come to my phone or to my account at Authy (which have my phone number). So it is not very easy. It is not at all easy. But this is not all. Bitcoin stored on their servers is covered by their insurance policy. According to their site:

"Coinbase is insured against employee theft and hacking in an amount that exceeds the average value of online bitcoin it holds at any given time. Specifically, Coinbase's insurance policy would respond in the event that bitcoin stored in Coinbase was lost or stolen as a result of a breach of our physical security, cyber security, or as a result of employee theft."

"Coinbase has held this insurance since November 2013 with highly rated carriers (S&P rating of A+ or A.M. Best Rating of A XV or higher)."

The bitcoin itself is pretty secure, sometimes most of the people who got their btc wallet hacked or stole  is on their own fault
If you are using online wallet and wanted to beef up the security try to turn on 2FA

There are certain exploits that an experienced coder could do to somehow disrupt the whole network, just like the transaction malleability problem. Bitcoin. though secure, still has an attack vector on its code, but exploiting it seems to unlikely and only devs with knowledge in this could use it for their own gains or fix it. Remember the recent surge of unconfirmed tx? That is the malleability problem exploited by a single user.

This is the most important quote for people that use bitcoin to understand.


An intelligent user is an informed user of the pitfalls that anything bestows. With the good comes the bad. Just have to be aware where those bad things are and how to deal with them once encountered so they don't fall into a trap like others have fallen into before them.

Yes this is sad but true in any situation. Build a fortress and eventually there will be a point of access over time.
But it can be fortified if found out before it is accessed not after to keep it from happening.

Bitcoin's safety is proportional with users intelligence. Sadly, there are still alot of people that don't quite understand how it works, and those who have no sence of security,
so they end up being robbed or/and scammed. With time, there's no doubt the levels will rise, and we no longer will have such problems.

Bitcoin is very safe if you know how to use it and store it. Depending on the type of use you want to give it you will need use different kinds of storing.

In theory nothing is completely safe. There is always risk - it's just how much risk your comfortable taking and whether the trade-offs are worth it.

For most people they'd either be comfortable having their wallet on their computer. It's better than having it on an online wallet but obviously not as good as cold storage or a hardware wallet. Cold wallets are too much hassle for small transactions - and if you deal with BTC on a daily basis and in different locations - an online wallet for small transactions (i.e. hot wallet) could easily be justified.

as long as you are doing the transaction signing online it is not safe

you should learn how to make an offline wallet, sign a transaction on that offline wallet and then broadcast it on another PC which is online.