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Topic: massive cold storage of bitcoins? (Read 3310 times)

full member
Activity: 166
Merit: 100
July 10, 2014, 11:21:59 PM
#35
The vast majority of the gold storage is in cold storage (or at least believed to be, I'm looking at you Germany Wink)

Gold is the reserve currency of the past. It could be used again for this purpose if bitcoin didn't take over.
sr. member
Activity: 294
Merit: 250
July 09, 2014, 02:50:31 PM
#34
That is biggest problem of BitCoin, people don't look at it as a money to use it, but as a treasury to keep for rainy days.


This false dichotomy is getting tiresome. It's not a choice between storing all your bitcoin away OR spending all of it. Just like with fiat, people have savings AND daily spending money. There is nothing wrong with having savings in bitcoin - the problem is not having enough places to spend bitcoin on a daily basis. I have my cold storage that I won't touch (savings) and I have a wallet on my phone with small amounts that I spend every chance I get.

Stop blaming people for holding their savings, which is wise, and put energy into getting more vendors to accept bitcoin, therefore increasing daily transactions in bitcoin.


legendary
Activity: 854
Merit: 1000
July 09, 2014, 01:41:53 PM
#33
There's another post on reddit today of someone who had 35 BTC stolen from "secure" wallets.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/295las/35_of_my_btc_gone_pc_not_compromised/

Certainly it seems like this guy knew what he was doing, but still somehow managed to get his BTC stolen....

I myself have taken all my bitcoins off of coinbase except for small amount. Except for a few donations, I haven't spent any this year.
I'm wondering, if investors put most of their bitcoins in cold storage (and subsequently, not use them for currency), what will be the result?

On one hand, they become more rare and they are held more tightly, which would seem to make them more valuable. On the other hand, they won't be used very much, which might mean they don't have as much value.
I'm not sure what to conclude. There are a lot of very smart people here and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

 

I don't buy this!
legendary
Activity: 3542
Merit: 1352
Cashback 15%
July 09, 2014, 04:45:18 AM
#32
I don't have much bitcoins to store so I only keep it in my old android phone that I don't use to connect to the internet. I heard that many people have their coins stolen by using brainwallet.org and one user here in BTT have accused me of stealing his coins by telling other people that the brainwallet address was mine. So if you want to keep your coins safe and secure, don't use any services offering you "secure and safe wallets" that seems to be shady and not trusted by any other users.
full member
Activity: 142
Merit: 100
July 09, 2014, 04:44:24 AM
#31
Some developers should implement a safe and easy to use wallet. If someone with experience encounter this type of problem, we can assume a non-geek will hesitate to use a currency that is not safe and not secure.
legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1010
Borsche
July 09, 2014, 04:24:20 AM
#30
Is bitaddress.org safe though??

Personally, I don't consider any mainstream computer-implemented random number generators to be secure.  That includes bitaddress.org's built in entropy source.  My solution is to mix in my own entropy, at about 10% - 15%.  What does that look like in practice?  I accept the private keys that are supposedly randomly generated, make a few of my own 'random' modifications, swapping out 5 - 10 characters, and then turn that new private key into an address.

And, it can help to double or triple check the address derivation was carried out correctly.  Feel free to import your custom private key into different pieces of software and make sure they all give the same result.
IIRC one of the devs had posted on here that the entropy of bitaddress was not truly random and it may not be a good idea to use their services, although it could have been regarding another bitcoin address generating site.

no, you remember wrong. it was about brainwallet.org which used silly simplification in obtaining randomness ; bitaddress is fine.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
July 08, 2014, 09:59:42 PM
#29
Is bitaddress.org safe though??

Personally, I don't consider any mainstream computer-implemented random number generators to be secure.  That includes bitaddress.org's built in entropy source.  My solution is to mix in my own entropy, at about 10% - 15%.  What does that look like in practice?  I accept the private keys that are supposedly randomly generated, make a few of my own 'random' modifications, swapping out 5 - 10 characters, and then turn that new private key into an address.

And, it can help to double or triple check the address derivation was carried out correctly.  Feel free to import your custom private key into different pieces of software and make sure they all give the same result.
IIRC one of the devs had posted on here that the entropy of bitaddress was not truly random and it may not be a good idea to use their services, although it could have been regarding another bitcoin address generating site.
full member
Activity: 152
Merit: 100
July 07, 2014, 09:39:29 PM
#28
I use PiperWallet. 200$ machine. Bitaddress.org. Offline.
legendary
Activity: 2324
Merit: 1125
July 07, 2014, 07:02:35 PM
#27
The vast majority of the gold storage is in cold storage (or at least believed to be, I'm looking at you Germany Wink)
newbie
Activity: 12
Merit: 0
July 07, 2014, 06:51:08 PM
#26
Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for pointing in the right direction. Electrum seems ideal for my purposes!
legendary
Activity: 1722
Merit: 1000
July 01, 2014, 07:49:06 AM
#25
Secure not even close to offline.  Not concerned.
legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1010
Borsche
July 01, 2014, 01:58:56 AM
#24
That is biggest problem of BitCoin, people don't look at it as a money to use it, but as a treasury to keep for rainy days.

Since bitcoin is deflationary they use it as a speculative tool to increasing their wealth in terms of fiat.

There is little way around this issue.

Which is ok. If the value keep going up, it might be better  used as a store of wealth rather than being money.
in order for the price of bitcoin to go up over the long term it will have to be used as some form of money

I guess you mix terms "money" and "currency" here. Just putting something in a cold storage knowing it will be still worth something tomorrow - is already using it as some form of money. The good, value-storing, money. It still could be used as a currency - for performing exchanges - but the amount of such exchanges has nothing to do with it's "price" going up or down longterm. It may very well be used only as better gold, as a convenient value-store and value-transfer only, and be converted into fiat for any purchase, and still have incredible valuation.

In fact, I think the future for bitcoin is being the backbone of wealth storage and money transfer; all the local purchases will be performed in local fiat (prices of all fiat money would be expressed in bitcoin and will only serve as a temporary physical off-blockchain representation). Any government could then print as much fiat as they want, but that would result in their fiat tanking against bitcoin quick.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
June 30, 2014, 11:47:21 PM
#23
That is biggest problem of BitCoin, people don't look at it as a money to use it, but as a treasury to keep for rainy days.

Since bitcoin is deflationary they use it as a speculative tool to increasing their wealth in terms of fiat.

There is little way around this issue.

Which is ok. If the value keep going up, it might be better  used as a store of wealth rather than being money.
in order for the price of bitcoin to go up over the long term it will have to be used as some form of money
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
June 28, 2014, 09:37:59 PM
#22
There's another post on reddit today of someone who had 35 BTC stolen from "secure" wallets.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/295las/35_of_my_btc_gone_pc_not_compromised/

Certainly it seems like this guy knew what he was doing, but still somehow managed to get his BTC stolen....

I myself have taken all my bitcoins off of coinbase except for small amount. Except for a few donations, I haven't spent any this year.
I'm wondering, if investors put most of their bitcoins in cold storage (and subsequently, not use them for currency), what will be the result?

On one hand, they become more rare and they are held more tightly, which would seem to make them more valuable. On the other hand, they won't be used very much, which might mean they don't have as much value.
I'm not sure what to conclude. There are a lot of very smart people here and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

 

Definitely wasn't secure, just another good reminder not to use untrusted sites with rubbish entropy to generate wallets. Sad though, I feel for the guy. Armory Armory Armory...

Yeah i havent heard any history about a well secured wallet where the guy dint download anything from internet and still lost his bitcoins, most of the hacks are done by some trojan they downloaded or because they stored the btcs in an unsecure place.
full member
Activity: 224
Merit: 100
THE GAME OF CHANCE. CHANGED.
June 28, 2014, 09:36:59 PM
#21
That is biggest problem of BitCoin, people don't look at it as a money to use it, but as a treasury to keep for rainy days.

Since bitcoin is deflationary they use it as a speculative tool to increasing their wealth in terms of fiat.

There is little way around this issue.

Which is ok. If the value keep going up, it might be better  used as a store of wealth rather than being money.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
June 28, 2014, 08:59:32 PM
#20
That is biggest problem of BitCoin, people don't look at it as a money to use it, but as a treasury to keep for rainy days.

Since bitcoin is deflationary they use it as a speculative tool to increasing their wealth in terms of fiat.

There is little way around this issue.
legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
June 26, 2014, 06:57:01 PM
#19
When I attempted my first cold storage I was not aware that all the balance on the address must be spent even if the slightest amount from that address is transferred to some other address. This nearly costed me all my bitcoins because I was about to delete the wallet immediately after testing if the cold storage address really works (by sending 0.0001). You can definitely shoot yourself in the leg when messing around with cold storages.

What do you mean? Care to explain pls?

The change address thing https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change

Oh, yea, that thing. Thanks

LE: But that applies only to Armory right? I mean, if you backup your wallet.dat you're safe.
legendary
Activity: 2590
Merit: 3015
Welt Am Draht
June 26, 2014, 06:54:48 PM
#18
When I attempted my first cold storage I was not aware that all the balance on the address must be spent even if the slightest amount from that address is transferred to some other address. This nearly costed me all my bitcoins because I was about to delete the wallet immediately after testing if the cold storage address really works (by sending 0.0001). You can definitely shoot yourself in the leg when messing around with cold storages.

What do you mean? Care to explain pls?

The change address thing https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change
legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
June 26, 2014, 06:53:17 PM
#17
When I attempted my first cold storage I was not aware that all the balance on the address must be spent even if the slightest amount from that address is transferred to some other address. This nearly costed me all my bitcoins because I was about to delete the wallet immediately after testing if the cold storage address really works (by sending 0.0001). You can definitely shoot yourself in the leg when messing around with cold storages.

What do you mean? Care to explain pls?
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
June 26, 2014, 06:12:02 PM
#16
That is biggest problem of BitCoin, people don't look at it as a money to use it, but as a treasury to keep for rainy days.


well it's definitely true of people in this sub-forum Smiley
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