Topic: Storing Bitcoin about 20 years and is offline paper wallet (Bitaddress) secure? - page 2. (Read 351 times)

It sounds like you are taking a very cautious and thorough approach to storing your Bitcoin for the long-term. Using a hardware wallet or paper wallets can be a good option for long-term storage, but it's important to understand the pros and cons of each method.

• Generating paper wallets with just private keys is generally considered safe, but using the BIP38 Passphrase feature can add an extra layer of security. This feature allows you to encrypt your private key with a password, making it more difficult for someone to access your funds if your paper wallet is lost or stolen.
• Storing paper wallets correctly, such as in a fireproof and waterproof container and burying them underground, can make them very secure. However, it is important to remember that if you lose access to your paper wallet, you will also lose access to your funds.
• Using the offline version of www.bitaddress.org is a widely used and generally considered safe method for generating paper wallets offline. However, as you mentioned, it's important to ensure that you are using the most recent version of the software.
• Using multiple USB flash drives for storage can provide added redundancy and security, but it's important to ensure that they are stored in separate locations to further protect against loss or damage.
• Quantum computers are a developing technology and it is uncertain how they will affect the security of current encryption methods in the future. However, using a long and complex BIP38 passphrase can help protect against potential quantum computing attacks.

Overall, there is no single "perfect" method for storing Bitcoin, and it's important to weigh the pros and cons of different options and choose the one that best fits your needs. It's also a good idea to keep your storage methods updated and to regularly check on the status of your funds.

i know your thinking of he air gapped pc and usb wallet generation stuff.. but also think abut that USB longevity with a pile of wet soil on it for 20 years. rusting the metal connectors and seeping dampness inside the gaps to get to the circuitry inside

think about water proofing(vacuum seal bags) and lockboxing it, to give it a metal box coffin to reduce the damage 20 years of being buried can do.

Use any way you want to store your Bitcoin, just remember to make it easy to access. Dont store your paper wallet in a metal box, that you will put into safe, which your will bury, pour concrete and plat a tree above it. Just laminate your piece of paper and that is it. The more sophisticated you are in storing, the worse and complicated it will be in the end.

As I said in my previous posts, it would be better to generate a HD wallet with a seed phrase.
The seed phrase is a series of words that can generate numourous private keys. In this way, you don't need to keep 50 private keys. All you need is your seed phrase.


Why are going to do that? To increase you security?
A single address is enough, unless you want to have multiple addresses due to privacy reasons.
Take note that to do so, you will have to spend some fee for splitting the fund. You will also have to pay more transaction fee when spending the 0.5 BTC.


That's right. I wouldn't use Bitaddress for generating wallet.
Use electrum. It's open-source and compeltety secure, if it's used properly.
In electrum, you can generate a HD wallet and you will have a seed phrase which can be used for deriving all the private keys and address. You will also have the opion to export individual private keys.

OP approached the solution of the btc storage method with maximum creativity. Quite an interesting description.

In this scheme, I have doubts that all data will be stored on digital media: PDF files on flash drives and on an SD card. In 20 years, these devices can fail, especially since it don't have a backup power source and flash drives with an SD card will not be connected to a PC or other devices. In short, without access to electricity, this data simply will not be stored for so long (if this is not a myth). Also, the shelf life of these devices can be corny less than a period of 20 years.

Therefore, I think that here it is necessary to carefully consider the method of storage.

Just in case, it would not hurt to add the good old way of storing information on a piece of metal.

Thanks for the replies so far. I don't want to store the private keys exactly on paper but on 10x Sandisk USB flash drives.

Here is my short plan:

1. Offline laptop + Ubuntu DVD + Offline version Bitaddress.org on USB flash drive
2. Generate 50x offline wallets without BIP38 to make things not even more complicated
3. Save 50x offline wallets from Firefox as 50x PDF files on 10x USB flash drives for maximum redundancy and security
4. Take a picture of the public address / QR code with an old camera (SD card)
5. Bury the 10x USB flash drives with 50x offline wallet private keys like 50 feet underground
6. Transfer all 0.5 Bitcoin to these 50x offline wallets
7. Set and forget about it and bury them out in like 20 years or so to keep them safe from others as well as myself



I'm concerned about Bitaddress.org because someone also said in another Reddit thread:

"Please don't use any javascript address generator for anything that matters. The common libraries they have used have had a long and worrying series of mathematical flaws that cause them to occasionally generate addresses that do not match the private keys, and were completely without the sorts of test that would have detected these mistakes. Even if the errors are all fixed now, it's very easy for a webpage generator to be using an old version without anyone really noticing."

https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ss91w/seriously_how_are_you_all_generating_your_private/dlf4uhr/

Metal steels are better than paper to store your seeds and they are water, fire, acid, stress proof better than paper.

Crypto Security - Additional Protection For Your Seed/Private Keys.
Securing Your Seed Phrase with Washers
[LIST] Bitcoin Seed Backup Tools
Metal Bitcoin Seed Storage Reviews

The hardware wallet should give you a seed phrase (a series of 12/24 words) that can be used for recovering your wallet at any time. All your private keys can be derived from the seed phrase and as long as you have the seed phrase, there's nothing to worry about. As far as I know, most of hardware wallets should give you a BIP39 seed phrase.

If you want to have 50 bitcoin addresses, go for a HD wallet with a seed phrase. In this case, instead of keeping 50 different private keys, all you need to keep is a seed phrase. That would be much easier.
Also note that with using 50 addresses for holding the fund instead of using a single address, you will have to pay more fee.
If you generate the private key/seed phrase using a safe tool on an airgapped device, your fund would be safe. I recommend you to use electrum.

You might want to investigate using wax or some other sealant to coat the SD cards/USB thumb drives etc to prevent any moisture getting inside.

Additionally, people use PVC pipes (sealed up at each end) to store items in which they bury (vertically to lower the amount of its "foot print" by metal detectors) additionally, items such as mosquito coils (or even cheap incense sticks) are added to the pipe - lit and smouldering which uses up all available oxygen that could cause rust to items inside the tube.

I bitaddress.org before when I was newbie here to print my own paper wallet. I laminated it to make it safe from physical destruction. Until my wallet balance is still intact so I can vouch about the reliability of Bitaddress as source of paper wallet address.

But I really suggest to use hardware wallet instead of paper wallet if you are holding for that long time. I can’t assure if you can protect a paper for a long time compared to hardware wallet which you can store and use freely whenever you want. You should invest on Hardware wallet if you plan for saving in long term.

paper can get wet/burn, decompose, ink fades

try drilling/ etching into metal

using seed phrase. you can drill out holes for each word

just the first 4 letters can tell you the word
so
      A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
1    x
2        x
3    x
4                                                       x
=ABANdon
do for all 12-24 words

or its words numeric position in the known word library
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
1   x
2   x    
3   x
4       x                                  
0001=abandon
do for all 12-24 words

metal lasts longer is fire proof and damp proof

...
the good thing about keys is that your are not limited to one storage. one format of said storage. so dont feel limited to one type

Hello,

I see Bitcoin as an alternative finance system and would like to store Bitcoin over a 20 year period. Therefore, I don’t really need all that media drama. I just want to "set and forget” about it. Having a moderate amount of Bitcoin (about 0.5) on Coinbase causes some distress - not my keys, not my Bitcoin. All that media drama and blockchain influencer blah blah is definitely too much drama for me and causes me headaches.

Since I have a long-term view, I don’t know about hardware wallets whether they are compatible with my PC in 2040 or so. And then I would be paranoid enough to buy 10 hardware wallets in my case. Paper wallets will always exist, but I don’t know about their safety, even with just 0.5 Bitcoin distributed over 50x paper wallets and 50 feet underground (what I would like to do.)



Therefore, I have currently some tools: a 10-year old laptop without hard drive, Ubuntu DVD, 10 new Sandisk USB flash drives (saving as PDF, no paper priting) and the offline version of www.bitaddress.org.

My starting point for all these thoughts is this tutorial:
https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-wallet/paper/

My plan is as follows:

1. Use the old laptop only for generating Bitcoin paper wallets (no hard drive, just Ubuntu DVD) with the the offline version of www.bitaddress.org

Generating paper wallets with just private keys is all right? Or is the “BIP38 Passphrase” feature a must do from bitaddress.org for maximum security?

2. Save 50x wallet addresses as 50x PDF files and transfer it on all 10x USB flash drives, use water/fire-proof packaging and bury them 50 feet underground. They went straight from offline PC to 50 feet underground.

3. Take a picture of each Bitcoin address / QR code (only the QR/address, nothing else) with an old camera (SD card) from laptop monitor and use OCR to have them in “copy & paste” format for online PC. I sure have to know where I have to send them from Coinbase.

4. Transfer my 0.5 Bitcoin from Coinbase to these 50 wallet addresses (so like 0,01 Bitcoin to each wallet)

5. Forget about it and move on with life


Addition questions:

   1.   Are paper wallets in general safe if stored correctly? Is BIP38 really necessary if I store my Private Keys 50 feet underground? Otherwise I have to write down 50 BIP38 phrases for 50x offline generated wallets and I fear I will look myself out when I want to retire

   2.   What is currently the most secure and “only the paranoid survive” way to generate a wallet address and store Bitcoin nuclear-war proof? It shouldn’t be rocket science, although I feel like it has to be somehow? If I have to spend $1,000 for more tools, that's all right for some peace of mind for a 20 year period.


   3.   Is www.bitaddress.org in general the way to go for offline wallet generation and free of errors? I’ve heard that JavaScript could cause some problems with generating the wallet offline? Their current Github version is from Dec 24, 2016, which is somewhat odd. But maybe never change a running system, huh? Has anyone ever had a problem with them if generated offline with Ubuntu DVD?


4. 10x USB flash drives are redundant enough for a 20 year period?

I'm concerned about Bitaddress because someone also said in another Reddit thread:
"Please don't use any javascript address generator for anything that matters. The common libraries they have used have had a long and worrying series of mathematical flaws that cause them to occasionally generate addresses that do not match the private keys, and were completely without the sorts of test that would have detected these mistakes. Even if the errors are all fixed now, it's very easy for a webpage generator to be using an old version without anyone really noticing."

https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ss91w/seriously_how_are_you_all_generating_your_private/dlf4uhr/


5. In the future, quantum computers will probably not be able to “crack” offline generated wallet addresses or wallets in general, regardless of whether I use BIP38 or not? I just want some peace of mind, thanks again.





I think you see my problem/challenge: storing Bitcoin over a 20 year period, store it as securely as possible and forget about it, and move on with life. If anyone knows better tools/ways to accomplish this, I would be forever thankful.

If I do everything correctly the first time, I don’t have to worry constantly about what this or that media outlet / expert says.

Thank you very much everyone for your help/suggestions/criticism. And sorry in advance for any stupid question, but this is at least to me at lot of money. And I have the feeling that paper wallets keeps Bitcoin safe from others as well as myself (not exchanging them for "fairy tale fiat money".)