Bitcoin Forum

I think I've gotten to the point where I have enough bitcoin that I don't want to keep it all in mycelium anymore.

So, paper wallet created on air gapped computer seems to be the most secure. But it has downsides like hard to spend if needed, could be lost, could get destroyed (sure keep several copies).

Coinbase Vault means I have to trust coinbase since they keep the keys. Unless I use the "I keep keys" version and then it seems the same as BitGo to me. however, seems most convenient, I just need username/password/2FA device.

BitGo sounds great but I still have to trust them a bit right. Also, are they still secure? Didn't bitfinex supposedly use them and still go hacked, or what that because bitfinex just didn't keep their keys/password secure enough?

I guess there's also Trezor, but that cost money and I guess could become damaged.

Thoughts, recommendations?

localbitcoins with 2FA and you are good to go. But then again thats the same as coinbase etc...

A third party service shouldn't even be considered, especially if you want to store funds for a long term. Remember: If you don't own the keys, you don't own Bitcoin. Of all those options only paper wallets should be considered.

There are also other options you might consider, such as Electrum, Armory or just good, plain, old Bitcoin Core. Try them all and see what suits you best.

Paper or hardware wallet seems the like the best choice.

Create a whole bunch of paper wallets on that Air gapped computer of yours and split your hoard into manageable quantities that would make spending it easier. When you need some bitcoins, just

sweep one of your mini paper wallets. I do not trust anyone else with my Bitcoin { my precious ...... } You can also keep some spending money on your hardware wallet {Trezor} for those times when

you need to shop. I have a 80-20 setup, where 80% of my coins are in cold storage {paper wallets} and 20% are used to oil the system. If everyone hoards 100% of their coins, merchants will stop

supporting Bitcoin payments, and we will have nowhere to spend it in the end.  ::)

If you don't control your private keys , you simply don't control anything. Take a moment and start googling about how much Bitcoins was stolen from users who kept their funds in exchanges and online wallets ... Millions of dollars !

I personally would go with a Paper wallet , but since you are planning to spend some , just send some amount that you think should suffice you in a Desktop wallet like Electrum.
Desktop wallets are pretty secure if you are not downloading any "Bitcoin-generator.exe" (If you know what I mean) .

See this as well (an expert speaking) : Antonopoulos: Your Keys, Your Bitcoin. Not Your Keys, Not Your Bitcoin (https://cointelegraph.com/news/antonopoulos-your-keys-your-bitcoin-not-your-keys-not-your-bitcoin)

Fuck paper wallets. Get a Trezor and no worries. Just store your 24 word seed securely.

I'm not sure how:
"hard to spend" is a concern for long term storage? It's not like you're going to be constantly accessing these coins. In any case, it primarily depends on the amount that you're storing and the frequency of access:

There are several hardware wallets that wouldn't be a bad choice. In any case, they're usually better than 3rd party wallets.

hard to spend is a minor concern. Either sweep the wallet, and create a new one, or as someone said, create many of them with smaller amounts. Of course, I probably won't be spending for 10 years or so... at some time I will start spending them right?

I don't think bitgo have done anything recently to make me ever want to use them. coinbase vault? nah. anything could happen in the coming years to bitcoin businesses. I don't think many of them are gonna be around long term.

i'd stick with paper myself as long as I had somewhere I was comfortable storing it.

Paper wallet with BIP38 encryption generated under a write-only OS like a Linux DVD with your internet disconnected, doesn't get any more secure.

You can laminate your paper wallets, this way it can last longer and only theft or a fire is a issue. The trezor comes with paper sheet where you write your 24 words seed to recover your trezor wallet anytime if your trezor become damaged or lost. If you have spare 1/8 BTC for the trezor, buy it. If not, laminated paper wallets is good option as well.

When you are creating a paper wallet, any malware on your computer can read the private keys. If you print out the paper wallet the attack surface is increased as your private key will be sent out over your network unencrypted. Even if you use an encrypted paper wallet you are still in danger from keyloggers. A hardware wallet is immune to these attacks.

That's why you use an air gapped computer.

From your list I don't find the best option because coinbase does not allow you to control the private key and your funds 100%, but the paper wallets seems the old and more secure one. I would suggest a hardware wallet like Trezor which does it job perfectly, it cost a little but it worth if you are looking to store bitcoin secure for a long term.

Thats right, actually if you use live CD linux distro + USB with the bitcoinaddress.org html file, remove the HDD and LAN cable, very cheap printer which cannot store the printed pages somewhere then you can even use and connect the computer to internet later (after your done, removed and never use the live CD and USB again and rebooted) as there is no place to store any information on. Actually information could be stored to Bios, but what are the odds for that from live CD linux distro? Plus you should first test the paper walets with smaller amounts if they are safe anyway.

I am sure there are lots of people on here who store their Bitcoins using different methods. I really feel like going the paper wallet route is one of the more secure methods as paper wallets offer a flexible and useful way to store surplus funds.

If you have alot of bitcoin, yes you shouldn't use Mycelium. Buy a Ledger wallet (I'd recommend a Nano S) or a Trezor. I'm personally waiting for the Trezor 2, which should come out early next year.

Paper and hardware wallet are most secured in any scenario because private key never leave from your hand. Paper wallet is free as well as it can do what hardware wallet can do if you put those paper safely and generate those wallet in completely offline computer.

Storing funds for the long term should be done on your own offline created paper wallet.  Sure it is a hassle, but it is much more convenient to have those coins and be able to use them when needed than to get them stolen.

here is what i gathered so far while using bitcoin:
if you...
1) have around 1BTC any wallet with a strong password and 2FA is good as long as you have the private keys not the wallet service offering it.
2) don't want to spend it for a long time (a couple of years) use paper wallet
3) want to spend but also hold for long time in a cold storage, using a cold storage with Electrum is easy enough. you create the tx on your online PC, transfer the unsigned tx to the offline PC sign it with the Electrum there then transfer tx to online PC and broadcast
4) if you are willing to spend money for a bitcoin wallet then choose a hardware wallet like trezor,...

*) one thing is certain, Coinbase Vault or anything that is similar to that and you are trusting a third party with your bitcoin IS NOT SAFE

I don't think that's true if you chose the multi-sig option:

https://www.coinbase.com/multisig

sounds like the Bitgo multisig wallet actually.

i guess paper wallet is the best option , easy to be renewable,easy to get,but the main problem is it's easy to lost but if you keep atleast so many copy of it and save it in different place which you know that it's secure and will never be touched by everyone,it'll be fine

even if you hold one signature and they hold the other, it would still be trusting a third party to hold half of it and you may get hurt.

besides you can do all these things yourself with a simple paper wallet so what is the point of that.

Paper wallets, but really just the private keys.  That look something like this:

5Kb8kLf9zgWQnogidDA76MzPL6TsZZY36hWXMssSzNydYXYB9KF

But can be made to look like this:

5Kb8kL
f9zgWQno
gidDA7
6MzPL6T
sZZY36hWX
MssSzNyd
YXYB9KF

And practice restoring them, to make sure you know what you are doing.

There have been people who has hacked Trezor wallets with special tools, so it's not as secure as you might think. Yes, the person who wants to hack the Trezor has to have physical access to the device, but it's still possible. A paper wallet, created correctly is basically hack proof at this moment and it will cost you nothing.

The Trezor will cost you $99, so it's up to you. ^smile^

as long as you are creating the private keys "with the right code (or wallet)" and also doing it on "and always offline computer" and also keeping those keys offline and you are the only holder of those keys then you are using the safest way of holding bitcoin.

so anything like coinbase vault or any other service that is similar falls under the category of "less" safe.

It's still not exactly the best form of storage, though, and your best bet for storage is going to be a hard wallet.
If you have over 10 bitcoins, you should be able to afford to buy a hard wallet already it is not such a big cost when you are deliberately looking for security for protecting your bitcoins.

i think i will choose USB bitcoin wallet and blockchain. because with USB bitcoin wallet, i can take it to everywhere i go, and i can use it with easy. and maybe i will fill my mycelium with at least 0.5 BTC, not much as 1-2 BTC. the rest maybe i will use blockchain.

BIP38 is an absolute must for paper wallets. If you have a paper wallet and you haven't got it encrypted I guess you are up for a hard awakening since sooner or later someone will steal your wallet and he'll have full access to the private key. BIP38 should be enabled by default when you create a paper wallet.

They hold 1 key and you hold two. Two keys are needed to spend. Technically, they hold two keys, but one is encrypted with your password. So, in theory, they can't spend your coins, and you can spend them without them. It looks pretty much the same as Bitgo.

So, do you feel a BIP38 encrypted paper wallet is safe enough to store on line like in Evernote or Dropbox for example?

So, you're suggesting what? Generate a priv key, and write it down rather than printing it on paper?

I always wondered about those split paper wallets you can create too, but never understood exactly how they worked.

No.  I export the private key, change the formatting slightly, label it something else like "urine test results from lab", and print it.  Then put it in a binder with medical documents.

That seems to be a genius way of keeping private keys! No one would ever think of it as a paper containing something worth taking for. I honestly think that it would work nicely as long as you don't screw up on the sequence of the segments of the private key. Also, the good news is that it isn't susceptible of any theft because who the hell would take other's medical records anyway?

I can't believe BitGo is being suggested here as a long term storage solution in light of what has happened.

Even if we believe the best case scenario (for BitGo) -- that they allowed Bitfinex to run an insecure implementation of their software -- that's still incredibly damaging to their reputation. You can't bill yourself as the top Bitcoin security firm in the industry, act as co-signer for the largest USD exchange in the world, co-sign 120k BTC in stolen BTC, then throw your customer under a bus after you actively participated in the loss.

Sorry, but no. If Bitfinex insisted on an insecure implementation, BitGo should have terminated their contractual relationship in the interests of their customers and reputation. Instead, they rubber stamped the 2nd largest theft in Bitcoin's history. Incompetent monkeys.

How could anyone consider using BitGo? We should be lobbying exchanges to end their relationship with BitGo, if anything.

So what is the point of coinbase multisig ? When you lose one of your two keys then you could still spend your coins with coinbase help, thats it ? But it is a question whether coinbase or other service like BitGo going to be around in 10 years...

If you plan to dont touch your Bitcoins for so long then paper wallet seems best option to me. Hard to imagine Bitcoin value after so long time. Do not encrypt the paper wallet so the Bitcoins are not lost when you lose the passphrase after so long time.

Yea, I have no idea the whole story of what happened and it seems Bitgo should be in some way culpable.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised there is no consensus here.

Forgetting/losing a password is going to be an issue no matter what method you chose, Paper or Trezor or Desktop wallet, etc. So you feel better security is to lock up the paper wallet rather than encrypting it eh?

All you need is to hide the paper wallet well, then the risk of physical theft is very small. The advantage is you dont need to remember any passphrase (you would need to store the passphrase somewhere as well). I using paper wallets and I think much bigger security concern for Bitcoin is computer malware, so I feel well hidden paper wallets with visible (unencrypted) private key is no security concern at all - it is like buying trezor, writting the 24 words to the paper sheet as is recommended and hide it well to have backup, these 24 words on the paper sheet are unencrypted as well and are equivalent of visible paper wallet private key.

Try to use hardware wallet if you are holding any serious amount of bitcoin. The blockchain will take around 260 GB space in your hard drive and will take a long time to update initially, but safest to hold your bitcoin for a long time.

But if you are holding a little amount of bitcoin, then you can definitely go for coinbase vault. But again the coinbase is a third party service provider and hence if they go out of business, you will loose all your bitcoins.

At best, they were willing to burn their reputation to the ground by allowing Bitfinex to run an insecure implementation (i.e. rubber stamping fraudulent transactions for commissions). Possibly worse, this exposes that they have no internal circuit breakers (or ones that can easily be gamed by hackers to prevent them from triggering) to secure against fraud.

The top security firm? That's how they sell themselves. LOL. They are a fucking joke. I hope they are buried in this industry. They deserve to lose everything.

You can still easily spend by holding your funds in a cold wallet on a disconnected PC. When you want to transact send a small amount to another wallet and transact from the 2nd wallet. I suggest Electrum for this, uses similar seed based concept as Mycelium. Also do not trust online wallets for the safety of your funds for a long term storage. Don't risk safety, for the ability to spend easily.

For long term storage, it's good to use resources that do need to be accessed offline without needing to backup often.
You can backup the encrypted wallet.dat on usb but you need to put this usb on PC after a while because it can corrupt or lost the files, so electrum, bitcoin core works well.

I'm not sure I understand. What does a hardware wallet have to do with the size of the blockchain? My understanding is that a hardware wallet holds your seed/keys and signs transactions for you. It doesn't store the blockchain right?

Lamination does not preserve paper.

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/preserving_photos.html

I guess I could get one of these. https://www.cryobit.co/cold-storage-products/cryo-card/

paper wallet is better that other or hard wallet. it is more secure if your going to keep a large amount of bitcoins. because online wallets may go offline or go something wrong. just an advice though if your planning to keep huge bitcoins.

Paper wallet of course.
You can make multiple copies of it incase you misplace one.
With private keys on your computer which people usually only have one copy because they don't thing the worst can happen to their system.

i have to read the full article to make sure but from this first like it is obvious that the author is talking about old docs, and other stuff not a freshly printed paper that you laminate.

also since it is talking about Archivists and preserving stuff you have to see what they mean by "long" it may be hundreds of years not what we are looking for in a paper wallet (50 years! max).

and from experience i can assure you that laminated paper last long because i have still some laminated cards from my childhood that are still new as the first day they were created.

And you still think that you own 100% of you bitcoins? Sorry man but you have to make a research about this because coinbase is safe but not 100% as you think. Paper wallet is still a good option even though it is an old method but moving also to hardware wallet like trezor is a better option.

Yep, I still do:

The multisig vault is designed to give you 100% control of your funds, with a balance of security and ease-of-use. You control the private keys which allow you access to your funds, yet you can easily spend your funds simply by entering a password.

Because Coinbase never learns your password and never learns your user key, Coinbase never gains access to your funds.

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1743782-what-is-the-multisig-vault-

Are you saying they are lying? Or just incompetent?

thats true, i never put my money into the online wallets, cold storage is the best for big money and i use desktop wallet as a hot wallet

If you don't want to use a paper wallet, keep the soft copy of your keys in cloud storage where only you have access to the password.

Although you have to trust the owner of the cloud storage site.

I will say the coinbase vault. If they offer to give you your private keys then I will go with that.
I don't use Bitgo and if I used a paper wallet I would end up losing it as i store everything on my computer.

I would use cold storage.

Advantages are long-term, secure storage for Bitcoin. The Ledger wallet is a secure device.

A disadvantage is the chance of it being lost. It is hard to hack, but most things today can be hacked.

These are my recommendations.

 :)

By "cold storage" you mean what? Because you say ledger you mean a hardware wallet?

I usually use Coinbase, I think Coinbase Vault safe to storage Bitcoin.

Why not use some of the downloaded wallets such as Multibit or Electrum? Those are probably the only wallets you can count on not scamming you and/or being "hacked". But anyhow, I'd suggest Coinbase Vault if you are really sure about it.

simply downloading those wallets and using them is not going to ensure your security. you have to do some extra stuff to increase your level of security:
1) downloading the wallet files from official sites and checking their signature.
2) encrypting your wallet file with a password.
3) having anti virus and taking other security measures to not get infected
4) using cold storage

If you aren't going to consider a few hard-drives or USBs for long-term wallet storage, then I would probably recommend either the Coinbase Vault or the Paper Wallet, and I would personally be leaning closer to using the Coinbase vault as long as you don't have anything that would make them want to close your account. Coinbase basically absolves you of most responsibility, however it is less liquid and you have to wait for a timer iirc.

Why would you use a 3rd party for cold storage? Why trust anyone else with a key? Just get your own paper wallet and/or hardware wallet. I also keep encrypted copies on USB. No reason to trust a 3rd party when you can do it yourself. The nice UI of sites like Coinbase (or Bitfinex...) are deceptive -- you are much safer handling your own security.

What about blockchain.info?

It's a web based wallet and you generate your own private keys.

Blockchain.info might be a step up from a 3rd party wallet where you don't control any keys. But it is susceptible to attack. If you don't control the software that controls your keys, your keys aren't safe.

Much better to use a desktop wallet (or hardware/paper), particularly for longer term storage.

If you wanna choose between of those 3 I would go with paper wallets.Make sure to secure them from water and fire.
But there also other possibilities like hardware wallets e.g. Trezor, Ledger Nano S and Keepkey.
All 3 are great devices and worth the price they cost.

I personally use a coinbase vault for long term storage, however I do not have much to store, so I am not making much of a risk in doing this.  If you have a large amount, I would recommend a paper wallet, for that would be more secure.  It is really preference, for it is harder to access a paper wallet, from my understanding; however at the same time, getting your BTC out your vault takes 48 hours.

I certainly will not use BitGo, since Bitfinex used it and still got hacked. Which makes me fear Coinbase vault for long term storage. You can not possibly go wrong with paper wallet, can you?

Why doesn't anyone consider the risk of physical theft or loss when considering paper wallets? Seems to me backing up an encrypted wallet from an air-gapped computer to any random Dropbox account, renamed Birthdaypics2007, might be 10x safer in the long run.

If you're smart about your bitcoin holdings, you don't announce them to the world. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of paper wallets. I only keep paper copies of encrypted keys to add an extra layer of obfuscation. It would be difficult IMO for a thief to locate both my decryption key and my paper wallets. If a paper wallet is stolen, I should have ample time to move the funds to a safe address.

To clarify, I also wanted to highlight the risk of loss due to some mishap or catastrophe - I can just see someone bemoaning the loss of their paper wallet due to a fire or flood. Maybe someone down in Louisiana, for example, thinking they were smart with three copies of a paper wallet carefully hidden in their house, parent's house, and workplace - and all flooded and destroyed.

I see a lot of focus on hacking incidents, and not unreasonably so given bitcoin's history, but the more traditional risks of physical theft and loss due to catastrophe over a person's lifetime should also be carefully considered. And like you said, we shouldn't be publicizing our bitcoin holdings to anyone. I assure you I haven't done what I suggest above, for example. ;-)

Definitely, people need to consider the risk of loss from accidents/catastrophe as well. It's important not only to have your backups in different physical locations but geographically disparate locations.

Another risk that people don't often talk about is the risk of data corruption. Mediums like USB can suffer degraded quality over a period of years, so people should be replacing their backups every few years. I doubt my gold discs will become unreadable in such a short period, but better safe than sorry when you've got dozens or hundreds of bitcoins on the line!

well, reading the rest of this thread should be enough to convince anyone that bitcoin's nowhere near ready for prime time yet.

Well, yes and no. I didn't expect a consensus, but also didn't expect some of the risky advice.

Of course, the suggestions to avoid centralized services from many does point to the anarchistic nature of many of the people that use this forum.

From my options and the feed back I've gotten here...

1. Paper Wallet created correctly is the most secure, but probably not the most durable.

2. Hardware Wallet, well you have to back up the seed on paper, so I don't see how this is any better than 1, espessially since I just want to sock away the btc. Hardware wallet is certainly the best option for your "checking" account.

3. Coinbase/BitGo, you personally control 2 of 3 keys and still have the advantage of a service to more easily spend if needed. The jury is still out on the bitfinex thing, but it for sure soured me on it.

4. Coinbase Value (they have the keys), trust in the third party service is needed. Trust that they will be good stewards of the keys and also trust that they will be around long term.

At any time the Mycelium people could release a version that sends all my coins to some BTC address in some auto update. Do I think it will happen, probably not. Is it possible, yes. Hence my

So, perhaps I will create a BIP38 Encrytped Paper wallet on an Air gapped computer and then just store it in my Evernote account along with the physical copy. I am still concerned if something happens to me the money is gone, which means I need to backup the password somewhere. So, Shamir's Secret Sharing I guess to encrypt that and give the parts to trusted friends/family/escrow agent to use in the case of my untimely demise..

No matter how safe the storage system is, it's always a good idea to split your funds and store them in different places (safe places ofc).