Topic: Tips for cold storage? - page 3. (Read 3101 times)

They may. I'm not too sure about that. Even though the code is opensourced, they could easily change the server such that it doesn't completely erase the private key. Still, you would not be able to securely generate your keys since they can easily capture it. There was once a vulnerability which affected the RNG and costed user lots of BTC(Update was pushed without acknowledgement of users). I wouldn't take the chance.

But after you delete the address from you wallet they delete the encrypted private keys too(that's what i know, correct me if i am wrong).

I see people recommending Electrum for a cold storage. Electrum is not a cold storage. Electrum is a lite weight, hot wallet.

You have two options for a real cold storage! These are paper wallets or one of the hardware wallets. For the hardware wallets, I suggest Trezor, the best one in my opinion. It is a bit expensive, but it's well worth of investment if you have a but more coins, I would say 10+ coins.

Of course there are other hardware wallets as well. There is a list somewhere with all of them listed and presented.

Blockchain.info stores your private key encrypted on their server. You aren't supposed to let any third party know about your private key, whether encrypted or not. I would go for bitaddress.org instead.

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I would go for Electrum on a offline computer if I want full security and broadcast transaction on another computer separately.

It defeats the purpose of an offline wallet to use a third party who can know your private key.
I strongly recommend against using this method.

What i use for cold storage is this:
1. Put your bitcoins into blockchain.info.
2. Generate a paper wallet for your address which contains your bitcoins.
3. Get a print of the paper wallet.
4. Delete the address from blockchain and again put the address online as watch only.
5. Keep the paper wallet safe and use it to retrieve the bitcoins when you need it.

the best tip is to hide your paper wallet if you will use it as a cold storage in a place where no one could find it and steal your money

A little of topic but you should seriously consider a hardware wallet like Trezor.

When I started out I also made paper wallets and had Electrum as my 'daily' wallet. Things became a bit complicated or rather a bit of a hassle when I needed extra coins so had to use some of the paper wallets and also the storage of all the details of each wallet etc...

I eventually invested in a Trezor and its the best thing I could have done. I now just have one wallet that does it all. Its a daily 'hot wallet' but also a 'cold storage' wallet at the same time. You also have the ability to create multiple wallets on the trezor so you can easily have say 5 bitcoin wallets, 5 litecoin wallets etc. without any problems and all of them are recoverable from a single seed so no need to store tons of wallet details, just the one seed.

If you have an Android phone then things are even better as you can make use of MyCelium that interfaces with the Trezor so you can access your Trezor while you are on the go, no need to wait until you are back at your pc. And if you are already familiar with Electrum you can use that to manage your Trezor wallets on your pc, if you want. Electrum picks up all the accounts so it will show you all the wallets on the Trezor in a watch-only mode until such time as you plug your Trezor in and enter your pin.

I'm not saying that paper wallets and the like do not have their place, just that life is so more hassle free with a hardware wallet. It is really the best of both worlds and in my opinion well worth the cost.

To avoid issues with change you send the change to a fresh paper wallet. Either directly with the transaction you issue or you 1st swipe the private key (thus transfering the funds to a different address of the wallet you use), create the TX and afterwards send the rest to your new paperwallet. The last approach requires 3 transactions, the 1st only one. I would prefer the 1st approach, but it might be a bit tricky to get the correct amount with fees depending on the wallet you use that leaves no rest.

I was reading about paper wallets but what seems to be the problem here is losing change. Am I right? How does one avoid it?

Why dont you try paper wallet.They are more secure unless you live in a disaster prone area.
You can create one at blockchain for free.

Its just an extra layer of security. If your seed is lost for some reason and your offline system is no longer working, but you still have your password and a backup wallet file you can still access your coins.

Great, thank you!



Thank you for the tip. But why should I save the wallet.dat? Wouldn't the seed phrase bring back my coins?

Electrum is good to go.I would also write down the keys somewhere and hide it safe.It is better to have 2-3 different methods of saving your coins in cold storage. I also recommend to safe the wallet.dat at least two times if you use usb or external hard disk drives.

Whether or not electrum is for you depends on your needs. If you are just looking for cold storrage electrum should be fine. It does not require much in terms of hardware and is quickly installed and ready to use. I would suggest you use electrum 2.x.x (currently 2.5.1(2) AFAIK), which works with 13+ words as seed.

So I grabbed a few BTC and I want to put them into cold storage for a while. I have been browsing and I think that a wallet that gives me a 12 word seed phrase would be best. I am thinking about Electrum. Would you guys agree or do you have any better (if possible free) alternatives?

Thank you!