Topic: Safest Wallet for BTC without Fee (Read 441 times)

Most open-source wallets are free too. It's not the best metric to find what you're looking for.

It's not as simple as a "Yes" or "No" answer... it all depends on your use case... There is no "one size fits all" wallet

For some, running a Bitcoin Core full node is the best solution
For others, Electrum works well and satisfies certain requirements
For other others, web wallets like b.info work well
For yet more others, exchanges like coinbase are the perfect solution
For oldschool others, paper wallets are the go to solution

That's why the Bitcoin.org "wallet chooser" asks a series of questions that includes the "Which criteria are important to you?" and "What features are you looking for?" sections

Would you agree electrum probably is the best for this that is free? 

Thank you for mentioning Satochip.
If I can help someone here about our product, it would be a real pleasure for me !

Regarding the smart card reader, yes, here in Belgium it's somehting quite common as everyone (or barely) is using it to pay tax (we have to pay our taxes online and authenticate ourselves with our smart card e-ID).

In the other hand, we are hardly working on the NFC features for our next batch of cards ... This could improve the user experience.

Satochip aims to be a good alternative in the hardware wallet ecosystem : open source, low form factor, easy to use and affordable.

Back ups and seed phrases.

For the coins I hold on a hardware wallet, I have two hardware wallets, both with the same seed phrase restored on them, and I have two encrypted copies of the seed phrase. One hardware wallet and one encrypted seed phrase are stored within my house, and the other hardware wallet and other encrypted copy of the seed phrase are both stored at two other different secure physical locations. I have a similar but a little more complex set up for my cold, airgapped wallets.

If you have your coins accessible by only one means, or by several means all at the same physical location, than that is a single point of failure. A seed phrase to your hardware wallet is useless if you store both in your house and your house burns down. Secure and encrypted backs ups and redundancy are the only way to ensure you don't lose access to your coins. There is the obvious caveat that the more physical locations you choose to store your back ups, the more chance of one of them being discovered.

So what you are saying is online wallets aren't safe, cold wallets and cold storage (including hardware wallets) are also not safe either, and paper wallets are equally unsafe because we can lose the associated private keys. What are we left with in this world of unsafeness (not sure if this is an actual word)?

I think you might be confused as to what a cold wallet is. A cold wallet is completely disconnected from the internet, such as a paper wallet or airgapped computer. As long as you don't do something stupid, your private keys will never touch a device with an internet connection, and therefore can never be transmitted to another user. Similarly, it is impossible for an airgapped computer to get a virus unless you transfer one to it via removable media such as CD or USB drive. The risks you talk about are risks of hot wallets, such as software mobile and desktop wallets.

The only thing that time has shown us is that given enough time, every exchange or web wallet gets hacked eventually. The risks you talk about above (keys being stolen, malware) are particular risks for online wallets, and they also introduce a number of risks which don't exist with other wallets, such as phishing pages/links/emails, accounts being hacked, the service itself being hacked, unannounced KYC requirements, accounts being locked or closed, the service shutting down or scamming, etc.

If you are going to use a web wallet (I wouldn't recommend it), then you absolutely should be using 2FA, but doing so does not make you 100% safe by any means. It lowers the risk of losing your coins if your account is hacked, but you are still just as vulnerable to all the other risks I just listed above.

Don't lose your keys or seed! Store them in multiple locations. Write them down properly and check if you can read every word/letter. Archive and encrypt them on multiple offline locations. The whole point of all this is to be the one and only who controls this data.

You can use hardware wallets even on unknown or infected devices because the private keys are stored in a secure element.
When ForkDelta was attacked via a DNS service attack last year those who logged in with their private keys lost their funds. Those who used a hardware wallet to log in didn't.

Security is certainly important, but do not forget that for many people a cold wallet will have a number of drawbacks. For example, like losing a key or transmitting it to other users, viruses, etc.
It seems to me that online wallets are suitable for small amounts, most importantly time-tested. And it is better that there are several places for funds. 2fa and other delights must be used

I totally understand what OP wants, but sometimes to get the full picture it still has to be scratched a little deeper. When we consider that someone is investing (or planning to invest) about $ 100k in the crypto business, then it is not difficult to conclude that all these funds + earnings must be returned at one point. In my opinion, it is completely crazy to store such amounts in a hot desktop/mobile wallet with all the dangers to which such software is exposed.

So I would disagree that Electrum is safe in general, all you have to do is think of a very sophisticated phishing attack that has taken place in the recent past and is still ongoing, with losses being measured in thousands of BTC. OP can start to use Electrum, everything can be OK for some time and then at one point of carelessness fake wallet download and game over.

We can only give advice, everyone takes the risk for their money and their actions. Even hardware wallets in the wrong hands will not be able to prevent someone's stupidity.

We can debate about this for weeks and still wouldn't agree but in the end it comes down to this:
The best combination of convenience and safety is Trezor and Ledger. If you care about the safety of your funds but also want a wallet that is not too complicated, you should get a Trezor or Ledger. Respect the $50-100 price tag or regret not doing so if something goes wrong in the future.

Paper wallets and airgapped machines are great solutions but they are not nearly as convenient and easy to use.   

They do periodic sales during the year. Also, sometimes people who have signed up with an email address with Ledger will get emailed offers out - you could either sign up yourself, or keep an eye on the Hardware wallets sub-board. People occasionally post offers they have received on there for other people to use, or you could start a topic asking if anyone has any offers sitting around they would be willing to share. The last one I saw was 20% off (IIRC).

I still haven't decided on what the best way to gift crypto to a complete beginner is. Each have their drawbacks. Paper wallets are great for being easy for the other person to store - they don't actually need to learn anything until they want to spend it, just keep it safe in the meantime. However, they teach poor security practices, as whoever I am gifting to has to have complete trust in both my ability to generate and print the wallet securely, as well as my character to not secretly be holding a copy of the key myself. Gifting a pre-initialized hardware wallet with bitcoin already on it has the same drawbacks - they have to trust me to initialize it securely and not keep a copy of the seed myself. Any other method kind of ruins the "gifting" aspect of it - "Hey, I want to gift you some bitcoin, but first I need you to spend several hours learning about what it is, how to store it, and downloading and setting up your own wallet". I'd probably settle on paper wallets, with the suggestion that they should sweep the coins to their own hardware wallet or paper wallet once they felt confident to do so.

Web wallets are the least safe wallets you can choose. You open yourself up to multiple new vectors of attack such as account hacks, server hacks, phishing sites, etc. that simply do not exist with software or hardware wallets, as well as having to place complete trust in the third party who runs the wallet. Not recommended.

In case you missed it. OP:

I like the Blockchain.com wallet. It is a safe and easy-to-use Wallet ideal for any beginner. It was my first Bitcoin wallet and in it, I learned how to make transactions. You can activate 3FA for added security. If for any reason you forget your password you have to use seed words to recover access to your Wallet.

You can Swap between Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, USD PAX, and Stellar Lumens. This is a quick exchange that is very useful.
It has other features such as a block explorer to search and verify transactions in the Bitcoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash blockchain.
The developers are in constant updates to give their users the greatest utility and productibility. I am really satisfied since I am using it.

You are right. I'd buy another Trezor or Ledger even if I had just $10 worth of cryptocurrencies just to get rid of that fear of my coins sitting in an unsafe place & being lost. I regret not buying the Ledger 2-pack during the Black Friday sale (they offered both Nano X and Nano S at the price of a Nano S only). Now it depends on what kind of people you hang around and their mentality. It's part of the game. People I usually tell about Bitcoin are always pulling out the "It's a ponzi scheme" card or would only buy BTC worth <$50 hoping for that to turn into $50k in no time. They wouldn't invest $100 in a cryptocurrency but they would blindly purchase a new $200 pair of Nike boots. It's sad, but it is how it is.

Now you see, we never mentioned in our discussion that we most likely live in two completely different surroundings and people next to me probably have a different mentality than those next to you.

When I first started out with Bitcoin, I remember printing paper wallets and sending small amounts of BTC to them (at the time, they were worth about $50 each). I then gave away a few of them to some of my closer friends, telling them they should keep it for years and they won't regret it. That's why I put paper wallets on the top of my list. It's easier to hand someone a paper and tell them not to show it to anyone & to put it in a very safe and hidden place than teaching them how to open an airgapped wallet. But these people will not know how to spend their gifted funds too. (I feel like I'm talking about Peter Schmidt now)

My big mistake (obviously, I always have to either make a mistake or go off-topic in one way or another) in the posts where I put paper wallets before all the others was that I completely forgot for a second that OP wanted a wallet for himself, not for somebody else. He has plenty of time to earn experience on his own, it's going to be his own wallet.

Therefore, let me fix my earlier statement and go for a better suggestion for the OP: Either buy a hardware wallet or create your own airgapped wallet, transfer $5 to $10 to it and just play with the functions of it. See what you can do and what you can't. Try to get used to sending & receiving transactions, so when the first real deposit comes in, you will have a considerably smaller fear of losing funds. And trust me, experience DOES matter. Also, always check addresses, sums and fees twice (or more if needed) before sending BTC anywhere. It's better to check it 10 times and safely send than being in a hurry and losing your funds through an irreversible tx.

Moreover, earning experience will also make you understand how Bitcoin works way easier than reading theory. I've learned most of it through mistakes and usage. Practice makes perfect.

Personally, I think that $50 really isn't much in the grand scheme of things... I find it odd that people will nickle and dime on this stuff when they have potentially thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency that they need to protect.

It was just like when I started in aviation... looking at headsets... people will hunt for a deal and opt for a budget headset for $100 that has terrible quality, is uncomfortable, doesn't have active noise cancelling and will likely be ruined after a year or 2... completely forgetting that they're about to spend a minimum of $10k-$15K getting a licence (vast amounts more if they're going commercial). I spent ~US$600 on a top of the line noise cancelling headset about 10 years ago... I have since put about 1500 hrs on it, including 1000 hrs flying in the tropics... still in good shape and working perfectly. I replaced the ear seals twice and only had the cable changed because I accidentally damaged it when closing a door. The old budget one fell to pieces while I wasn't even using it. It was packed in a protective bad in storage and the cable and ear pads basically just disintegrated.

Given I've easily spent US$50,000 on my flight training/medicals/exams/renewals etc flying aircraft that at times cost $300/hr to fly... that US$600 was but a drop in the ocean. Same with hardware wallets... you want an easy, reliable way to securely store a "decent amount" of crypto? Hardware wallet for ~$50.

I was the same as most when I started out, I looked at these $100+ units and was like "NOPE!"... when I had like $200 worth of crypto... once my holdings increased to a point where losing it would equate to significant financial loss, I ordered a Nano S... AND a Trezor. I don't regret either purchase.

I've never heard of someone owning a smartcard reader, but if anyone does, it could turn into a good option for them.

The "how much did you spend on your phone?" part sounds fine theoretically, but I find it hard to convince somebody that their wallet would be so much more secure if they had a hardware wallet. They agree, up to the point where I tell them how much it costs. You use your phone daily. It has cameras, new & faster GPUs and CPUs, more RAMs etc. The hardware wallet is bought and sits there until the day you decide to spend/receive funds. That's the difference!

You can try something like the Satochip... I've been playing with one and it's not too bad. Granted if requires a USB smartcard reader... but the whole setup, card+reader+postage cost me like €40 as a special deal. Currently a card is €25 (reader is €15), so if you already have a smartcard reader it is a fairly good budget option. I queried them a while back on how common smartcard readers are and it turns out that in Belgium (where I believe the Satochip devs are based) they're very common because of the country's national "eID" system.

At the end of the day... how much did you spend on your phone? on your PC? Even if you only have 0.1 BTC to store, then $50 is less than 10% of your total holdings.


They have a thread here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/satochip-hardware-wallet-on-smart-card-usbnfc-5181719
Website with online store here: https://satochip.io/

Hmm. I have a counter-argument for your statement about practicability, but I'd go off-topic. Now about hardware wallets, I wish there was a cheaper one out there for those who can't afford to pay +50$ on a wallet. OpenDime is the only cheaper one I can think of, but it doesn't let you back up your seeds as far as I know so that's a no for me. OpenDime stolen/lost = your funds lost, compared to other hardware wallets that have close to 0% risk of losing anything in case someone steals it from you (unless they also steal your backup seed).

Lol, some people are weird--no offense, OP.

I agree 100% about the hardware wallet option, but I think he's looking for a software one.  I have to chime in and support the members who recommended Electrum, because it's a fantastic wallet and you can set the network fees as low as you want.  It's available for desktop and smartphones.  Very easy to use, pretty on the eyes, and it's a safe and reliable wallet.

Nothing wrong with a paper wallet, but they're not practical unless you're storing bitcoin for the long term.  I'm not sure if that's what OP really wants anyway.

Again, I'd argue the opposite. I think paper wallets are one of the hardest to set up properly and securely, and one of the easiest to go wrong with. Lots of people create them on a live website, or an offline website on an internet enabled device, which is hardly much better. Even turning off your internet doesn't do much, as any malware can just send whatever it needs to next time an internet connection is re-established. You need, at a minimum, to download and boot in to what is probably an unfamiliar OS for a newbie, and create your paper wallet on that. You also need to remove traces of the wallet from your printer. After you've made it, it is pretty unique among wallets in that you can lose all your coins permanently if you don't set up your transaction properly.

An airgapped wallet, on the other hand, can be a simple as installing Electrum (or similar) on an old laptop, and creating a watch only wallet on your main computer.

Having said all that, for brand new newbies, I'd probably suggest a hardware wallet in the first instance, since you can just follow the instructions to use one and they require very little technical know how.

For a new user who has never used Bitcoin before (or barely knows about it), isn't it easier to start out with a paper wallet and then moving on to an airgapped one? The latter sounds more complex to be used. I'm only talking from a new user's perspective, not from ours.

Disagree. Permanently airgapped wallets are easy to use. Making a transaction from my airgapped wallets takes me less than a minute longer than doing so from a desktop hot wallet - create transaction on watch only wallet, display QR code, scan QR code to airgapped device, sign transaction, display QR code, scan QR back to live device, broadcast. I can spend any fraction of coin I like, and after I've spent, my airgapped wallet is still fine to be used again and again. With a paper wallet I have to spend everything in it at once, and then create a brand new paper wallet from scratch afterwards. I'd say paper wallets are the least convenient of all.

In addition to the good advice above about offline devices, you also need to use an offline, preferably "dumb" printer, which doesn't have WiFi and doesn't store a history of files it has printed in its memory.

There is a list of good security precautions for paper wallets here: https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/#security

To clear this up for you, OP: a PROPERLY generated paper wallet means a wallet generated on an offline computer. You can generate an offline wallet on an internet-connected PC, but that puts your private keys at risk. For example, you can boot a Live Linux CD and use the offline paper wallet generator to print your keys. A Linux Live CD resets the system and erases any change or file you've made as soon as you shut down or restart your PC.

The paper wallets aren't very inconvenient in my opinion. They're the free option you have to put your funds in a cold storage. Ledger/Trezor are way better, of course, but they come with a cost you might not want to have unless you have a considerable amount of BTC/alts you own.

Airgapped PCs are way more inconvenient than paper wallets and paper wallets are more inconvenient than hardware wallets.

Remember one thing though: if you choose to use paper wallets, make sure you spend the ENTIRETY of your funds from your paper wallet when sweeping it. When you create a transaction smaller than your balance, there is a "change address" your change goes to. These addresses are generated through your seed. If you only have a private key, you will NOT own the change address your funds will go to! So take care.

EDIT: a shorter explanation of my last statement:
If you send the following funds TO your paper wallet:
- 0.1BTC
- 0.2BTC
Then you will have a balance of 0.3BTC sitting in your paper wallet. When you decide to finally spend money from your paper wallet, send only ONE transaction containing 0.3BTC. Don't send less, because you might lose the change.

A PROPERLY generated, bip38 encrypted paper wallet is defenatetly a secure option if it's generated using a peer-reviewed, offline wallet generator.
However, the big drawback is that a paper wallet is rather impractical to use... Every time you want to use your paper wallet, you need to import the private key into a different wallet, spend, create a new paper wallet, empty out the wallet to fund your new paper wallet, rinse, repeat...

But yes, airgapped wallets, paper wallets and hardware wallets are all considered secure

and paperwallet?

100% safety doesn't exist... However, there's a huuuuuuge²⁵⁶ difference between using an online wallet and a hardware wallet.
Sure, in the past certain attack vectors were found for certain types of hardware wallets, but afaik, those attack vectors were always rather far-fetched. Usually, the attacker has to have physical access to your device to begin with.
There is a big contrast to many other types of wallets, with attack vectors including: "not owning your own keys, phishing, software vulnerability's, seed phrases being sent to a remote server in cleartext,...

It's not because a hardware wallet only offers 99,99% security you should ever consider using a wallet that offers 50% security because 99,99% isn't 100%*

*numbers only shown to make a point, they are not based on measurements...

I am exploring all options safe or paid to store coins or to mine it. I have heard people saying that trezor and other hardware wallets are also not fully safe?

By reading your post history I see you're getting ready for mining and that you have $100k to invest, but at the same time you ask for some free to use wallet? Invest $50 in a hardware wallet and sleep peacefully, and this is the best advice you can get for free. However, if you want to take the risk you can play with Electrum and similar wallets, but keep in mind that free solutions are often the most expensive at the end. One mistake and your coins are in hacker wallet.

Thanks for all insights

The only places that charge additional fees are Exchanges, Gambling Sites and other web-based service providers... who are obviously centralised and use "custodial" wallets.

Get yourself a copy of Electrum here: https://electrum.org/#download

It has a lot of features that allow full control of everything... it's lightweight and relatively user friendly and there is a fairly active community here that will answer any questions you may have: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=98.0

It's also in active development: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum

So any issues identified with it get fixed promptly.

If you don't mind investing some money in a wallet go for a Ledger or a Trezor hardware wallet.
If you want a wallet you can use as soon as you install and configure it, take a look at Electrum. Download only from the official site and make sure you have verified the signatures before running it.
If you want to help the Bitcoin network and don't mind downloading the entire blockchain and syncing for a few days, (depending on your hardware and internet speed) look into Bitcoin Core.

Make sure you avoid storing your crypto on exchanges and web wallets. If you decide to use a software wallet make sure the device you install it on is clean and malware free. 

Well miner fee is fine but not the additional fee which are charged by exchanges like coinbase etc

and most importantly the security of wallet that it should be completely in my control and 100% safe to store/send/receive BTC

Web based/desktop and mobile

No. All transactions will require a fee to be able to propagate across the network as most nodes will reject 0 fee transactions. Unless you know a miner/mining pool willing to include transactions on your behalf, 0 fee transactions are a thing of the past.

What you want is a wallet that allows completely customisable fees... that way you can set whatever you want (greater than 0 obviously!), like 1 sat/byte. Plenty of good wallets allow this. Are you wanting desktop or mobile or hardware? Full Node or SPV?

There are 2 kinds of fees: fees payed to the wallet developer and fees you pay to the miner to give them an incentive to include your transaction into the block they're currently trying to solve.

AFAIK, there are no popular wallets left that charge a fee that goes to the developer. However, every wallet will add a miner's fee to every transaction you make, simply because a transaction without a fee doesn't get propagated trough the network anymore, and even if it did: no miner would add it to the block they're trying to solve.

Examples of good wallets:
- trezor (any model)
- ledger (any model)
- bitcoin core
- electrum
- https://www.bitaddress.org/

Do realise that if you keep your funds in an ONLINE wallet, or an EXCHANGE, they DO sometimes ask extra fees that go to them (and are not used to pay the miners). This isn't even the worst part of using an online or exchange wallet... The worst part is that you're not in controll of your keys, so you're not in controll of your funds...

Is there any safest, 100% decentralized, and free to use wallet for BTC?