Topic: Type of wallets and questions - page 2. (Read 349 times)

You should never be generating a wallet, paper or otherwise, on a device with internet access enabled, for this very reason. The correct way to generate a paper wallet with bitaddress is to download the site, verify your download, and then transfer it using removable media such as a USB drive to a permanently airgapped machine running a totally clean OS. Most users would use a live OS such as Tails or another Linux distro.

I have a couple of paper wallets, and have used bitaddress in the past, but all my paper wallets are now simply in the form of a seed phrase and passphrase written down on separate pieces of paper. I did this for three reasons. Firstly, it is easier to spend coins from a seed phrase, in that I can import it to a wallet on an airgapped machine, make my transaction, and the change will return to the same seed phrase. If your paper wallet is simply a single private key, then you need to create a whole new paper wallet to receive the change, which is a hassle. Secondly, if someone discovers a private key, they can sweep all the funds. If someone discovers a seed phrase, they would also need the passphrase which I have stored separately, and so my funds remain safe. Third, for these wallets I like to generate entropy manually by flipping a coin, and manually convert my entropy in to a seed phrase, to minimize trust I have to place in third parties.

Personally, I use paper wallets, hardware wallets (only Ledger devices now since the multiple major flaws reported in Trezor devices: https://donjon.ledger.com/Unfixable-Key-Extraction-Attack-on-Trezor/ and https://blog.kraken.com/post/3662/kraken-identifies-critical-flaw-in-trezor-hardware-wallets/), airgapped wallets, and a mobile wallet. My mobile wallet is by far the least secure, but it serves a purpose of holding small amounts of day-to-day spending bitcoin which would cause me no financial issues if I lost.

That is a very, very fair point. I cant argue it. However I guess I like the aesthetics of the paperwallet. Or vanitygen wallet. But I guess you're right!

If you want a paper wallet I wouldn't generate it on a computer with bitaddress.org script or similar. Why not just create a new wallet with your hardware wallet and write the recovery words on a piece of paper? You can then reset your hardware wallet if you are confident you correctly wrote/memorized the recovery words and placed them in a safe place. If you generate a wallet with Bitaddress or such script, you run the risk that your computer is infected by private key stealing malware which will send over your key to a remote server as soon as it gets an Internet connection.

Hardware wallets which I personally use trezor t, I've never had an issue and their interface is simplistic, one of the hands down best ways I've seen yet, but I like to diversify a bit. Anyone have issues with these? I doubt it.

Paperwallets I've used the github zip of bitaddress.org I've personally never had an issue storing btc on it(inalways make 3 copies) but I was wondering if anyone else had...what I mean is your bitcoin being swept or the private key doesnt work, like its wrong?

Vanitygen64 github zip, I've used this to make a "1SenDBTcPo. 0000000000000 .JqzLotgAck " address I gave it about .01 BTC to see if it was malicious code, thus far it's been sitting there. I store it on an encrypted usb, which has never seen the net, and is password protected. I was wondering if anyone had any issues with their btc being swept with this or their private key doesnt work, I have tested another one and it worked fine but with like .0008 BTC.

I've never used a mobile wallet and never intend to. Unless its 100% off line.