Topic: What is the best way to sercurly store bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies (Read 2597 times)

Paper wallet best and most secure
This is for sure!

and there is none perfect method.

I voted a paper wallet put somewhere secure. I'd put in my safety deposit box at my credit union I deal with.

For large amounts, probably not.  If it is known that you possess a brain wallet with a large amount of funds, then an abduction with an appropriate amount of cruelty would get you give it up. (How many fingers would you sacrifice before you decide that it's not worth it to hold out?)

Re: Armory: I use multibit. Is armory so much safer that it makes sense switching?

They could try! But I'm a very dangerous person! Plus, what if my paper wallet only has 3 BTC on it? They'll feel like fools for murdering me then, won't they!

Ha ha ha, I get the last laugh!

P.S.
Actually, a brain wallet is truly the most secure method, if you do it correctly and never get Alzheimer's.

If your serious I think that was the most secure idea until you just said it. I hope you hid your IP. There may be people looking to cut you open.

I had my friend, who is a board-certified surgeon, open up my abdomen cavity and place a ziplock bag with my paper wallet inside. It will remain there for 7 years before I must re-do the operation or spend the coins. Please don't find out who I am and cut me open in my sleep. ):

I use multiple, non-password protected paper wallets, which I generated myself on a offline, non-compromised system, so I can reasonable be sure that the wallets are not compromised, which I keep physically secure, only accessible to myself.  Bitcoins are kept in small denominations on multiple paper wallets.

My goals are to 1) keep my private keys physically secure; 2) anomymize my usage of bitcoins and  3) make my private keys accessible to my heirs in the case of my death.

I do not use a password, because if I were to die or become sick or injured in a certain way,
otherwise my wallets would become permanently inaccessible.  My heirs could hire a consultant to attempt cracking passwords, but that would be a situation that could potentially in end in fraud.

If I need to spend stored bitcoin, I will use the private keys and load them to a hot wallet.  I consider the paper wallet exposed once brought in contact with an online system.  While the keys are "online", I consider this a riskier situation than offline, because I imagine the common bitcoin hacker attack of the future would be for hackers to install key loggers along with stealing encrypted wallet files containing private keys.  The amount of time and value that my bitcoin would be exposed to online attack would be minimized, as any remainder of the bitcoin I transact would be swept back to a fresh offline paper wallet with private keys that exist nowhere online.

When I conduct cash transactions, I don't record the serial number of every bill that I use and keep a record of where I got it and where I spent it.  While impractical to do with cash, it is very easy to do with bitcoin.   I'm concerned with my privacy, I don't want this information to exist or be accessible to other people.   For instance, I may have contributed to an activist organization that is later declared to be a terrorist organization by the Department of Homeland Security.   Evidence of my contribution would open me to further scrutiny or possible criminal prosecution.  Or I may have transacted with an apparently legal business that turns out to be a cash cleaning front for a drug cartel.  If I am connected to the transaction, I may be legally compelled to testify against the drug cartel which could put me and and my family in danger.

By destroying used paper wallets (after all transactions involving the wallet address are confirmed), I remove the major proof that I possessed the bitcoin at the wallet's address at one time.  Keeping backups of private keys hinders this process.  There are still other methods of exposing my usage of the address by making the address public, the sender of funds associates the address with me, the signed transaction submitted to the network traces back to an IP node associated with me, the receiver of the funds associates the address to me.  Being found in possession of the private key would serve to collaborate the other evidence.

Keeping multiple backups I believe decreases security and increases the possibility of theft, since a determined thief would have multiple points to gain access to the private keys.

Essentially, I store my bitcoin in a way that is very similar to the paradigm of storing physical currency.  I only have control of my bitcoin if I physically possess the paper wallets with unexposed private keys.  To get my bitcoin, you would have to compromise the physical security of where my paper wallets are stored; or somehow find a weakness in the way I generated my paper wallets in the first place.

What he said.

The most reliable way to store Bitcoins is made less reliable by telling people what they are looking for if they'd like to steal them.  So I'm not going to say.

I can tell you however, that a so-called "Brainwallet" is one of the very WORST ways to store bitcoins.  In fact the longer it takes to generate a Brainwallet, the worse it is. 

Remember, everybody can see all the accounts.  They have your pubkey.  A brainwallet makes your privkey easy to guess, and they don't have to steal a thing from you.

That is actully a very neat/good idea. Tho Im not aware of many/any programs using maidsafe currently. Is their a way to view programs that make use of it?

In the MaidSafe cloud, a piece of the hash here, a piece of the hash there, and you with the only key(s) to connect them all.

My answer is "Paper wallie"

But when I was answering a though came to my mind.



I haven't got a problem with "What is the best way to sercurly store bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies"

When I will have possibility to save some ammount of BTC to hold I will use paper wallet for sure.

But.

None of those methods are perfect and all of them might crash

Perhaps better to use few methods at a same time

1.Brain lol I need to train harded my memory to remember private keys hehehe
2.Paper
3.Some usb
4.Maybe some sdcard


Perhaps is you will use all of those you will not lose your BTC but it might get stolen

As usual ... everything what have a value can be stolen.

Added your option


Added an option offline wallet secured on a laptop in a safe with no connection

I voted PW, just seems that this way the only way I ever lose is if I goof up. Can't blame anyone but yourself after that.

On a side note, how exactly are you making these wallets, what is the popular method or site?

Tattooed a a graphic on my leg that when hashed reveals a private key.

With paper wallet, you can keep (encrypted) ones in you real life wallet and in an emergency use Mycelium's cold spend feature.
You can also keep a backup (or multiple) elsewhere.

I struggle to see the advantage of keeping a cold laptop unless it was to sign transactions then move them on to a live pc.
I think I'm more likely to spill water on a laptop then set fire to my wallet.
 

I generated encrypted private keys for Litecoin, Bitcoin and Doge on an offline Linux boot disk.  Printed a copy of the encrypted keys and stored a hand written note in multiple locations with the 8 word passphrase (which also happens to be easy to retrieve mentally).

Currently using it as my bank vault. If I ever need to tap the funds, I'll go back through the same process.

"What is the best way to sercurly store bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies"


Sorry, but armory will not do other cryptos.  Only truly safe way for those would be a paper wallet.  That being said, there is no reason you couldn't safely keep a wallet on a USB or offline computer as well and still sleep at night.

buy netbook.
install bitcoin-QT.
save on USB (3x).
store in any place hide.


SAFE for 15 years.