Topic: Wallets with providers (Read 1594 times)

This is the reason you would want a private key in safety deposit box or such.  With a cold storage like paper you actually can use that private with many different wallets once you need it.  But it can be kept offline until you need it.

The private key is important though, as it keeps it were you retain ownership of  the BTC address and can use it in multiple wallets if need was there.  Also security of this private key is truly essential.  As with it your BTC can be taken so you really need secure storage of it.

It's already known that bitcoins don't have any official community to look after. So the bitcoin wallets which we use aren't governed by any one too. They are working independent on their own without anyone to point finger at them for any reason.
So, if you are using any bitcoin wallet from any provider and it gets shut down , then unfortunately you do lost your bitcoins. You can't do anything about it. Just make sure that you use a reliable and trusted wallet provider as they won't get shut down soon. Even if they will.. They will issue a notice before some time so you can transfer your bitcoins to some other address.

In the first incident, they updated the code and it turned out to be flawed. The least they could have done is to test it but they didn't. For the second incident, they could have regularly audit the code. No excuses since it occurred more than a month ago and people has beeen talking about it for sometime already. If you are going to choose a wallet, choose greenaddress.it. They are opensourced and have much more features with low risk of the loss of your Bitcoin. More importantly, it doesn't have a bad track record.

Ouch, didn't realize that. Fortunately, it seems that only a minority of those using their mobile app were affected and those who lost funds were compensated for their losses. Still, it's a pretty stupid programming mistake to make and it definitely doesn't give me a lot of confidence about their other services.

That being said, I still stand by my opinion that they're better compared to other online wallets where you don't have any degree of control over your funds. Historically, many more online wallet services have failed due to the operator running off with their customers' funds versus incidents where programming bugs were to blame. Online wallets as a whole are never meant to be secure anyway.

the important thing is to keep whichever wallet you choose, safe. you have to keep your bitcoins that are not going to use in short term in cold storage to keep it safe for the future, lets say a couple of years later.
the rest you can keep in an online wallet or a lightweight wallet that lets you spend then with ease.

It is a huge hassle to spend any of the coins if you are looking to store everything offline. If you want, you can store a majority of them offline. You can still store them on your mobile phone or desktop computer. Sure they may not be as safe as cold storage but if you do take security precautions, you can easily make it as secure as any offline cold storage.

Mycelium is the best wallet mobile app i think, never get any problem since first time i used.
also you can find here details: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/mycelium-20-hd-welcome-to-the-future-814907


~iki

check out bitcoin.org the page on choose your wallet. you can see almost every wallet that is created for bitcoin and understand the pros and cons of any of them.
wallets like XAPO and coinbase don't give you your private keys so if you lose access to the website, you lose access to your coins.

Never store all your funds at one place, every sollution have each of its advantages.
Storing all your bitcoins at one place is the same as cashing out your life safeing and keep it in you bag or under the bed. Spread out, store you bitcoins on different types of medias.

Mycelium is BTC Android wallet, it is pretty reliable, what you can do is if you want to keep your coins offline, put them on paper wallets and Mycelium has an import wallet feature so you can import the address which contains the offline funds, use them and send the rest to another offline/paper wallet to use later.

Hey can you please tell what is mycelium? Is it a mobile app for keeping coins offline? I am looking for a reliable mobile app which I can keep offline and always accessible to me. Does mycelium have the same functionality?

I think the best way will be to store your coins offline. Only get them out when needed, otherwise keep it safe in a cold-storage. Why to risk your coins by keeping all of them at one online platform.

Use multibit or mycelium in mobile so you have control in your private keys

There are a lot to be said or USB drives and paper wallets.  You control every aspect of the wallet this way.

But there is a need for hot wallets.   For these use small amounts in hot wallets.   This way if anything bad happens your majority is stored offline.  With it being online there is always a risk.   But in some cases a needed risk.

Why you not try use Bitcoin Core ?
we can back up wallet key (private key) than u save on external hardisk, MMC, Flashdisk, or like that
and your coin now safe

Blockchain.info is not at all a secure wallet. Stop recommending it to users. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/recent-breach-at-blockchaininfo-android-app-did-a-stupid-1085983

No mention of Blockchain.info?

They are one of the few online wallet providers that give users access to their own private keys. This means that even if they were to shut down, you would still be able to recover your bitcoins.

Someone posted another thread a few weeks ago asking if there were any other online wallet providers which offered a similar type of service and so far, Blockchain.info seems to be unique in this regard. It also explains why they are so popular:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/is-blockchaininfo-the-only-online-wallet-where-you-have-control-over-your-keys-1076837

There should also be a distinction between what is meant by the term "online wallet" vs. "offline wallet". On one end of the extreme, you could choose to store your coins on a shady exchange's online wallet which could shut down and disappear with your coins at any moment. Then there are the more "legitimate" online wallet services like Circle and Xapo which claim to insure your deposits in case something goes wrong. However, insurance is a legal matter and not a technical one. Insured Bitcoin wallet services are still a very new thing and it's not known whether or not they will actually pay out in the event of a massive loss. Personally, I wouldn't put much trust into these services.

Then you have Blockchain.info and multi-sig online wallets where you actually have some actual control over your coins on a technical level since you own the private key to your addresses. This is safer than the above and are probably suitable for storing medium amounts of BTC.

Moving onto offline wallets, there are lightweight wallets like Electrum and MultiBit which communicate with and depend on external servers to send and receive transactions and the default Bitcoin-Qt wallet which requires you to download the entire blockchain and be a full node. Finally, on the other extreme end of the spectrum, there are offline paper wallets. Compared with all the other options, paper wallets that have been generated in a secure manner using an offline computer are supposed to be the safest storage method and are recommended for storing larger amounts.

Yes, unless they give your bitcoins back to your for some reason, or warn you before they shut down

Yes your bitcoins will be lost. But they are not save anywhere except paper wallet. But low ammouts are good on your own pc's wallet. Good is MultiBit.

Yes, if you are able to export the private key you probably can restore your Bitcoins when the service did not scammed you. But usually your Bitcoins are completely lost.