Topic: How to securely hold your bitcoins (YOUR BITCOINS,NO EXCHANGES) (Read 594 times)

yes it's the safest wallet, may be we will see even cheaper hardware wallet as more and more people use crypto 

Simply not true,it works fine

I will suggest you to use mycelium wallet for Android because of its easy UI and smooth navigation. Electrum wallet is not good for Android it lags and freezes often.

In addition, you could simply read through  the documentation posted by the devels on bitcoin.org about securing bitcoin wallet and choose wisely.

https://bitcoin.org/en/secure-your-wallet

Just buy a Trezor and thats it keep that in a safe place..

If you are keeping your bitcoins in any exchanges (Zebpay,Coinsecure) your bitcoins are 100℅ not safe (Coinbase is much more secure than most,but don't take that risk,you can't do much if a hack happens and they get their wallet drained)

'It's your bitcoins only if you have your own private keys'

The best way to make sure to secure your bitcoins is use a cold wallet service,which meaning bitcoins stored offline where hackers or malware can't operate

1) Download electrum desktop client from
https://electrum.org

2) Next create a standard wallet by opening the application and (Important) write down the seed that gets created to access this standard wallet (This seed is what helps you access/recover your wallet in future if anything goes wrong with your computer etc)

3) Once the seed is typed in,you can set up a password to access, transact from your desktop client

4) From this point its fairly simple transfer all your bitcoins to your address found in Receive screen and you can rest assure that your bitcoins are safe in Electrum

You can also backup your private keys in a file,but I don't think it's that important since you have written down your seed

BONUS (How to operate Electrum On Android) :- Once you create your wallet you can now easily control everything from your Android (I suggest you don't create a wallet from Electrum Android client because it's buggy. Creating the wallet on desktop and using it on Android through seed recovery is the best manner to operate)


1) First download Electrum Android Client from
     A)  Play store
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.electrum.electrum

OR

     B) Apk link from Electrum website
https://download.electrum.org/2.9.3/Electrum-2.9.3.0-release.apk

2) Select standard wallet and choose restore with seed and type the seed which you created when creating the desktop wallet,this essentially ports your wallet to your phone and you can use most functions now on your phone itself without the need for your desktop

3) Create a six digit pin which will act as a double security when you send bitcoins etc and now you can have peace of mind knowing that you have secured your bitcoins.

(Correction - Dynamic fees can also be set in the Android client,so it is not an issue as I previously reported)


My main intention was to make you guys  aware of cold wallets (Offline wallets) and that unless you control your private keys or seed,your bitcoins are at risk at exchanges,hot wallets( Online Wallets)
So if you are a frequent trader keep sufficient amount in your regular hot wallet and transfer majority of your holdings to Electrum

Other ways are transferring to a paper wallet,although it's bit complicated,it guarantees max safety and through a hardware wallet like Trezor etc

Cheers