Bitcoin Forum

I have just read this morning a thread about safely printing paper wallets. It came to my mind how come nobody mentions Trezor as an alternative.

So, how do you see the security of Trezor compared to the paper wallets?

Let's put aside for now a fact that it costs about 0.5 BTC to get one. That's not in my interest to discuss about, I would like to hear only about the security.

if you compared trezor vs paper wallet i will choose paper wallet
im not have more money to save at Trezor

but if i have 50-100btc i will choose trezor 

I believe the security and the fliexibility to use a Trezor wallet is more than using a paper wallet, but it isn't much better than just using a paper wallet and for that reason , I still prefer using a paper wallet over a trezor wallet.

Ledger Hw.1 is also a good low priced hardware wallet with good security, if you can't spend .5 BTC then go for Hw.1. You can get one for 0.075BTC or 15.00 €. I have bought one for myself. :D

Personally I think that Paper wallets are the cheapest way to store bitcoins so if you have big and I mean really big you should go wi th Hardware wallets but Trezor won't be my first choice , I would choose Case https://choosecase.com/ biometrically secured multi-signature bitcoin transactions is always a better choice  ;D It's expensive though .; (as I said when I have huge amounts)

I used to have a couple of paper wallets before. Since getting my Trezor I have done away with them.

All my btc and ltc is now stored on the Trezor in various wallets and accounts.

Biometrics and Bitcoin is one of those things that seems like a good idea at first but isn't really. Fingerprints can be hacked in a variety of ways, and GSM tech too, which is what that wallet uses.

Looks good though.

A Trezor gives you more utility to use Bitcoin and it's better to use it for daily stuff, where the paper wallet is a long term solution to keep your Bitcoin safe, without using any devices. The idea of storing a piece of paper

in a safe, where you can send Bitcoins, without having to have online access to it, is just exellent. However, once you need to access it, you have more hassles to sweep it onto a online wallet and then using it.

Once the private key has been used online, it is generaly considered to be compromised and can be thrown away after it was emptied.  :(

Exactly this. It looks great and fancy, like something that can impress your friend. But these fancy add-ons are something that gives bad guys ways to compromise your device.

That's why I like Trezor, it's minimalistic. It has exactly the necessary and not a thing more to be secure and get the job done.

Case look interesting for day to day, outside uses where you can get your card out and impress everybody like I said already, but I wouldn't trust it with instead of Trezor with big amounts of coins.

i think they can be improved greatly, especially biometric with eye scan the same as bitcoin, which need further fixes to be really "effective"

if you want to compare key with eye scan and bitcoin with fiat i will choose the former for sure, ancient tech are bound to die eventually it's only a matter of time

Yup, Even fingerprints nowadays could be faked and the security of the wallet could easily be taken advantage. But what separates a Trezor wallet from a conventional paper wallet is the utility it offers to the end-user. You cannot easily import/export privkeys via paper wallet but you can do it fast in Trezor.

I'am not sure how it can be faked honestly unless he have your fingerprints from somewhere then yes probably , also for importing private keys I'am not sure how Trezor wallet works exactly but a simple scan of QR code using your smartphone is enough to import your private key for what comes to Paper wallet.

pass - I don't want false security based on a photograph or a piece of filmed footage. Maybe something that could be homomorphic like where it relies on multiple levels of biometrics and an encrypted passkey - integrate that into a wallet that's indestructible and I'll buy.

I run paper wallets, a trezor, and recently Kialara physical bitcoin.  I like the trezor for spending convenience and its still encrypted with my pin.   The device firmware itself would need to be hacked to cause an issue as not keys ever appear on the screen.  Even if a hacker can see your screen all they can see is the number of times you press a key.  They would need to have seen you unlocked it to determine the pattern - though that is out the window if you use a strong key with non repeating digits.  The same can be done with a paper wallet, but more work and/or trust is needed - for instance using a web wallet requires trusting that your system is free from malware and nefarious users nearby who may just login to steal your btc because you have a saved password and an unlocked phone w/ 2fa required to do anything.   Using Electrum has been nice though and it seems easy enough to import or sweep from paper so it would be something I would likely use  (over multibit standard or HD  [which charges a fee for dev I've read])

You know what, there's a really interesting idea in there. Instead of QR codes we have iris codes, but only for receiving. You could never change your address though, and that's bad.


Really, there are many ways. Apart from the 'finger hack' (literal) there are other fairly simple physical methods:

http://www.wikihow.com/Fake-Fingerprints (http://www.wikihow.com/Fake-Fingerprints)

And for the more advanced:

'Krissler photographed Germany’s Federal Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen during a public presentation in October. Combining high-resolution images he took as she moved her hands during the event, including a close-up of von der Leyen’s thumb, Krissler was able to develop a copy of her fingerprints. The hacker claims that he could then use his own copy to break into any of her accounts protected by her fingerprints, including the biometric scanners found on high-end smartphones like Apple’s iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S5.'

http://www.ibtimes.com/hacker-demonstrates-how-fake-fingerprint-sensors-using-regular-photographs-1769408 (http://www.ibtimes.com/hacker-demonstrates-how-fake-fingerprint-sensors-using-regular-photographs-1769408)


The truth is, no one will probably bother if you just have 1 BTC, but 100? 1000? They will. The GSM technology that cold wallet uses is worrying too. That cold wallet (and I'm loathe to call it a cold wallet) should only have minimal amounts of BTC in it for day to day transactions. If it were cheap, like $20, I'd buy one for daily usage because I quite like the look of it.

you can still split 50-100btc in several paper wallets

Both are not fire resistant but at least paper wallet is shock resistant  ;D

Paper for me. Costs nothing and it's 100% future proof. If I was dipping in and out of long term funds it would be a different matter and I'd probably go for a Trezor.

The securest  8)wallet is hybird brain wallet. You remember the whole private key and you are very safe.

how trustworthy is satoshiLabs ?

No one can brainwash me into thinking trezzor is better. Good ol paper encrypted with BIP38 is the way to go for long term offline vault sort of thing. For less amounts core, and for spare change mycellium or any web wallet.
A paper well hidden reinforced with plastic will live longer than an electronic device prone to failure

100 % trezor
that safe can acces every time, not like paper wallet you must export it to wallet before use it

Right now I use paper wallets for the same reasons as many here: they're cheap and low tech, read hard to hack if generated properly. However if I had a larger number of bitcoins and used them more regularly then I would get a hardware wallet; probably not a trezor due to the price but most likely a ledger wallet.

Another advantage of paper wallets is their simplicity, there's pretty much nothing that can go wrong with them and using a mobile wallet such as mycelium or breadwallet all it takes is a few taps and scanning a QR code. Along with the fact that there's nothing going on in the background: using and redeeming them is manual where there are very few opportunities to be hacked.

This is possible, but only if you’re already an expert in mnemonics, I really doubt that anyone here will dedicate so much time in order to just use mnemonics for this purpose.

They both have their pros and con's, paper wallets are easier and don't cost money but hardware wallets can be more secure. Hardware wallets have a bit more flexibility too.

I can see both having their uses. As others have already pointed out one of the big advantages to hardware wallets such as the Trezor is the ease of use and convenience they provide. The advantage of paper wallets is that they are cheap and need little in the way to create and later spend them.

I would think utilizing the best of both worlds would be the wisest choice; use Trezor for smaller amounts and more everyday uses, while paper wallets can be used for longer-term storage.

To make it more secure against not only theft, but physical loss, several paper wallets can be created. Say you want to store 100 BTC for long term, you could create 5-10 paper wallets and put 10-20 BTC on each one. Store a few in your home preferably in a fire-safe, a few at a bank safe deposit, etc. to spread out risk of loss.

Also you could reinforce the paper, as someone else mentioned, by laminating the paper wallets or putting them in a plastic sleeve for even more protection against water, spills, etc. A paper wallet protected like this would last for many, many years.

interesting to try it if i have 50-100btc
i will split to 5-10wallet

I prefer trezor.

I preffer to use paper wallet. I have not big amount to consider trezor yet.
What makes not sure about trezor is how strong is build. It`s still piece of HW and can malfunction rigth? I am not expert, any experience here?

Maybe I'm confused but if you have less than 10 bitcoin, what is the point of not just putting on Blockchain.info?  I mean is it really worth it for that small of an amount, time the possibly of being hacked worth it for such a small figure?

I prefer Trezor over paper wallets for ease of use.
If it stops working you can still recover the btcs with the seed, if stolen it's protected by a PIN.
Comparison chart made by Trezor (http://doc.satoshilabs.com/trezor-faq/_images/compared_to.png)

www.choosecase.com seems more convenient but twice the price

It is hard to spend money on a paper wallet.
I can't speak for the Trezor, but I love my Ledger. It offers more security than a regular software wallet and it's just as easy to use.

Trezor is better than paper wallet. After some time, let say 8 - 10 years, you can change Trezor to one one, because of risk from parts damage from daily use.  ;D

While I do agree that Trezor has far more security than paper wallets, I'd still choose paper wallets because it's much more cheaper than a Trezor. Nevertheless, when I have enough money, I would buy myself a Trezor  ::)

Not sure if you're trolling but I personally wouldn't trust any of my bitcoin to blockchain.info. Their blockexplorer slowed to a halt during the recent stress test and was vulnerable to spoofed transactions until it was exposed a few weeks ago. It's also generally not a good idea to keep many bitcoins in a hot wallet of any kind: mobile, online or desktop.

It's really not that hard to create and use paper wallets and costs next to nothing if you have a printer as has been pointed out countless times in this thread.

Hello,

I like to use paper wallet.
I think is very simple to make a paper waller and keep your bitcoins safe.
I hope to hear as many opinions.

you can find an overview about hardware wallets here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=899253.0

If you initialize the Trezor and write down your 24 word seed, you pretty much generated a paper wallet on a separate computer (the Trezor).  If you then put the Trezor and the seed into a safe (after extracting the master public key to your computer), you should have the same security as what you can get from a paper wallet if you follow all precautions.

Of course, you don't want to spend 100 $ to have a secure paper wallet generator.  The bonus of the Trezor is that you can spend from it and it is still secure.  With a paper wallet your keys may be compromised as soon as you import them back into your computer.

Security related bugs can always linger somewhere in the firmware.  The software bugs I have seen so far (they are all fixed in the latest firmware) required at least that you connected the device and entered the PIN, usually you also have to confirm an operation.   Also they required that your computer is compromised.  There is also the problem of physical theft and the PIN protection may be circumvented by hardware means.  However, in that sense it is much more secure than a paper wallet, which is completely compromised by physical theft (unless you use a passphrase, which you can use for Trezor, too).

Well you won't spend anything on a paper wallet, just literally a paper and some ink. Just generate it offline, keep it in a secure place and you won't have to worry about spending actually.

I can't find any information if these devices the "case" and the trezor are waterproof in case we accidentally drop water on these devices. The "case" use fingerprint which makes it more secure?
I prefer both trezor and paper wallet(cheapest)

A properly created paper wallet is at least as secure as a Trezor... for storage.  The problem with a paper wallet comes when you want to spend any of that coin.  The paper wallet must be converted back to digital, which is used to sign the transaction (ideally an off-line computer). 

If you're going to spend from the wallet, then a paper wallet can't really be considered a paper wallet, as it will spend some of its time on a computer.  That process is either A) easy to do or B) secure. It is not both.  Properly done (re-creating and securely wiping the PC in between uses), it can be safe.  But that's not easy to do.

Trezor simplifies the process dramatically.  Is Trezor as safe as a well done paper wallet?  Perhaps. Perhaps not. Time will tell.

you guys must be aware that newbies prefer pen wallets instead of paper for 100 years or trezor that im not totaly sure of what it is

for me (and my balance) paper wallet is better

why would i pay $99 for a thing that i might lose, when i can just print off a secure wallet.

I prefer trezor.
useful to hold large amount.
but nothing sell in my country. :(

You can lose the paper wallet too. You just have to be careful with the valuable things? It's not about these wallet but in general in your life.
I vote for trezor it is just phenomenal.

When you set up your trezor, it displays a series of words that you can transcribe into a paper wallet.  If you lose the trezor (or it's damaged, etc), you can regenerate your wallet with the word list.

The real value in the trezor is the ability to plug it into an untrusted PC and spend your bitcoin. 

This destroys the "I lost my device" argument. But still, he's right, you can just print a paper wallet.

The reason I like Trezor is that private keys never leave the device. But accessing it's seed would be just as easy as accessing the private key of a paper wallet.

It's also a bit more convenient if you need access to cold storage frequently.

me too i prefer trezor is best

I haven't used trezor or paper wallet but just by reading the feedback given to trezor i'll go with trezor. I hope to get one this Christmas :)

Trezor claims to be "water resistant" but not fully waterproof
Not sure about the Case, it has not been officially released yet