Topic: Should I backup my bitcoin? How do you backup yours? (Read 1221 times)

Absolutely a must. Depends on the amount you have. I used to back up any amounts lower than 1 btc just as a private key file with a password. Didn't have any issues just saving it on my email.

But in the past for very large amounts, I have backed up using the paper wallet technology.

Diversifying and placing in different online wallets will solve the risk of losing. Importantly you need to remember lots of phrases to retain if you lose at some instance due to some technical issues. Now even with advancement wallets were generated as apps to give the comfort and secure accessibility to the users.

Not Online vanity generator but the offline one on PC.

My wallet has a backup phrase that lets me print it off so if I lose my wallet I can restore it and whats in it from that.

How else people should have access to their bitcoins if not backed up? every one should do it no matter what and you should do it first by storing the coins in a virgin address and then make few backups on paper and hardware wallet as well. One other solution would be to buy physical coins, but they are still representing an address anyways if one wants to be worried about getting hacked shouldn't even buy or have bitcoins in the first place.

There is a way to combine public or private keys that commutes with the algorithm for generating public keys from private keys.
In particular, if we have two private keys P and Q, and the function f to generate their public keys:
p=f[P]
q=f[Q]
p and q are the respective public keys.
Call the function that combines keys together "*", it could be a different function when used for public and private keys, but I will still represent it with the same symbol.
R=P*Q
R is a private key produced by combining P and Q.
The function can also be used to combine public keys.
r=p*q
And now for the commutativity property:
r=f[R]
The algorithm for generating the address is a hash of the public key:
p'=H[p]
q'=H[q]
r'=H[r]
Reputable vanity generators work in the following fasion:
1. The client generates a private key P, its public key p=f[P], and sends p to the vanity miner.
2. The client chooses a pattern the address must follow, usually a word it has to start with, and sends this to the vanity miner.
3. The vanity miner chooses an arbitrary private key Q.
4. The vanity miner finds its public key q=f[Q].
5. The vanity miner combines its key with the one provided by the client r=p*q.
6. The vanity miner hashes r to get r'=H[r].
7. The vanity miner checks r' against the pattern, if it does not pass, the vanity miner goes back to step 4, steps 4-7 are the loop, and the miner does them a very large number of times.
8. When an address comes through that fits the pattern, the vanity miner sends the successful partial private key Q to the client.
9. The client combines P and Q to get the final private key R=P*Q, and derives the final address r'=H[f[R]], r' now fits the pattern.
Now the client has a vanity address and its private key, and the vanity miner cannot hack it because P is never sent to the vanity miner.
The only security disadvantage of this scheme is the fact that the public key r is known to the vanity miner, and is vulnerable to quantum computing, hashes are quite resistant to quantum attack, but the number-theoretical elliptic curve algorithm is quite vulnerable. Normally, a quantum attacker only has the time between broadcasting and confirmation to hack ECDSA, but with a vanity address, the hacker can start as soon as the address is generated.
Note that reusing an address that was already sent from, as well as using an address to sign messages, create the same quantum vulnurability as using a vanity address.

Your assumption isn't correct. If a hardware error should appear or you lose your Trezor, you can use the hand written seed and recover the coins just the same as you could with any other wallet using seeds. Just don't ever lose your seed and or destroy/lose your Trezor. Furthermore, Trezor is compatible with electrum and you could recover it by using another Trezor. But hey, no hardware issues for the past two years here.

You should use Electrum as it is a lightweight bitcoin wallet. And you can easily backup your wallet easily by exporting your wallet's private keys and seed to a stick for example or if you want to keep it offline make a paper wallet.

I would move your coins ASAP to a hardware wallet. The link in my sig will take you to a place where you can buy these. Hardware wallets are MUCH MUCH more secure than an online wallet. All transaction signing happens in the device so it keeps your coins safe from hackers even on an infected machine. You generate a 24 word seed which you write down on paper, this will restore your wallet addresses and keys as they are derived from this seed.

The ledger HW1 is the cheapest at about £15 GBP, the Nano S allows multiple currencies and has a screen, £50.

Get a hardware wallet, no online or desktop wallet will be as secure. If you really don't want a hardware wallet, download electrum. Make an electrum 2FA wallet, and save the 2FA token and seed.

In normal use, this wallet requires 2 of 3 keys. Your system holds one, another is held at a trusted third party who signs the second on your behalf when you input your 2FA code on your phone. If you loose access to the google auth app and do not have the 2FA written down, the seed contains 2 of 3 keys and this can be used to restore access to your funds, but you must create another 2FA wallet to have trustedcoin again.

Hope this helps, get it out of your online wallet ASAP.

You can use ledger HW wallet on your phone with the ledger OTG USB adapter.

I find electrum 2FA wallets wont work on the mobile app, a normal electrum wallet allows you to import the same seed on both your phone and PC to streamline your access to your funds, this also allows you to have a 'backup' of your seed this way too.

Indeed that is true but its changing everytime, the fact is that you can easily import it.

You should be able to import a private key or seed into the android version of Electrum, then you can use the same wallet on both devices.
The 'charge' (miners fee) can change but usually it's around 0.0002 BTC.

Their are so many reasons of not using web wallets are they are not secure and you are not in control of your wallet address apart from that if you are doing gambling then it is not good as some web wallet block the user account if found using for gambling.

So it is much better to use desktop wallet where you have full control on your wallet address and you can use it any where, i am using Electrum as it is light versions and only remembering the passphrass seed key is enough just safe it to lot of places because with this passphrase key you can reload your wallet any where any time.

Cold storage is safest way if you have nice amount of bitcoin, and web wallet like blockchain.info for tiny amount.

OMG YES..

I have it backed up on 10 USBs, 100 DVD's (OH THAT IS RIGHT ONE HUNDERED DVD's),  5 M-Discs and a few paper copies.

Don't mess around back it up like your life depended on it.

Few users have mentioned not to use any web wallet if you have large amount of bitcoin. Better is to diversify the number of bitcoin and save in different wallets. The reason is that than the offline hardware wallets its better to use online wallets for easy access.

Bitcoin is becoming precious asset day by day. And demand of bitcoin increasing exponentially globally. While considering these facts bitcoin usr must have to aware about bitcoin technology. Bitcoin wallet is very important for each and every activity. So safety and security of your Bitcoin wallet is most important. Any use can keep back up with .dat file. Or user can simply take back up of private keys associate with your bitcoin wallet address.

I have just downloaded an Android version of Electrum. How much is the charge if I am going to send money from web wallet to my mobile electrum.

Is there a way to make my bitcoin money from phone synchronized with my bitcoin money in laptop?

Thank you in advance

Making a back up wallet aside from the web wallet for me isnt working. The   your problem with other wallets it is very risky you may lose it when a virus penetrated your computer, when you forgot your password and many more. So for me web wallet is still the best wallet but the trick is to create many wallets not only in one site but to different sites, that way the risk is distributed and if you lose btc it is only in small portion.

Did you use an online vanitygen? I wouldn't trust that as far as I could throw it!
I use Electrum and the seeds are my form of 'back up'

Trezors sounds good, but I fear that a hardware glitch could lose my coins. I have heard that they are still recoverable in this case, but if that is the case, it means that the Trezor icn't really that secure anyway!

Don't click on links, use strong and unique passwords, keep your antiviruses upto date.

I use different wallet, electrum, multibitHD and armory. I always get the private key or seed key of the address I use just in case my computer crash and worst scenario, my hard disk is damaged.  
About web wallet, i don't see them very safe because of the possible hack.