Bitcoin Forum

Hi
is it a good idea to store bitcoins in popular online wallets like blockchain.info or coinbase
can these wallets get hacked one day ?

My opinion with blockchain.info it is secured but still no matter how secured it is as long as there are intruders who are wanting to target a site.

For sure they can do something about it same goes applies with coinbase. We cannot say what can happen, but hackers are everywhere.

If you wanted to store your bitcoins safely, just buy your own hardware.

And it aren't always hackers. It could also be a employee of the organisation why steals from inside. Just  use those websites for smaller amounts. In other cases just safe them local on your pc or even better on a hardware wallet.

Coinbase don't even give you control on your private keys so Its a service to avoid unless you are trading bitcoins then you should withdraw instantly just after buying or selling.
Blockchain.info no longer gives control over your private keys , at least not a newbie friendly way and It got removed from bitcoin.org for some security requirements that they didn't meet. I would use btc.com which is acquired by bitmain or stick to desktop wallets such as Multibit or Electrum.

Online wallets are never safe, as you dont have the private keys for the wallet address so anytime if the wallets is down or like what you are saying about getting hacked then you can do nothing. As the site is holding your coins and what ever they want can do with your coins. That is why it is recommend to go for desktop wallet or hardware wallet.

What security requirements did blockchain.info miss? I still use them and have been using them for a very long time. My personal experience is overall good with no serious complaints. There were a couple of times when I couldnt connect to the site but it hardly came to anything serious like losing some BTC.

What do you think of greenaddress.it? Are they safe to use? Are the founders trustworthy?

I don't think they are safe. Online wallets can fail at any time, and your funds could be lost if you don't have your private keys or a backup of your wallet. I'd go for paper wallets if I were you, so I could have my wallet in my own home, in my own hand. No other owner would have it. This is what I call being your own bank.

From the Github repository of bitcoin.org : https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/pull/663#issuecomment-65656828
I believe that greenaddress.it are secure enough and give you control on your private keys but some reasons , not enough people are using it. Its probably due the fact that people are used to blockchain.info and keep recommending it to each other.

No online wallet is safe 100%.The better way is store btc in offline wallet like multibit...

I used one and I never had problems, and I didn`t hear other people complaining about blockchain or xapo, or some other well known online wallet. So even there is stories about how they are not safe, if you don`t plan to hold big amounts there you will be ok.
In case anyone wish to buy larger sum of bitcoins, then it would be better to pay more attention on protection, I would consider buying some ledger wallet.

Yes that's true, it can be hack maybe later or sooner, any online or web wallets can be down any time so its not totally safe there, tho I use also this web wallets but never put big amount of coins there.

I'd suggest creating multiple wallets at Blockchain and Xapo.
I was in a delusion that Hardcore wallets are better than online versions but they come with drawbacks too. You need to safely store your offline wallet from your family and friends. If you format your Hard Drive or your PC crashes due an accident, you lose your money. Forever!
Store your money in parts on several wallets and each should have a different password of its own. Store private key in your cell phone or an old book etc. You might say that remembering several passwords is too tough for me. The best option is to encrypt your password using MD, md5, sha1,sha5,sha256 etc. Suppose my password is 123 for all the wallets. I encrypt it using all the above hashes. (You can encrypt them easily just google "Encrypt text to sha/md" etc) Thus, you have several passwords by only knowing 1. Even if one of your wallet is hacked, you can still rest assured that you have a backup of 5 more.
Hope it helps :)

They aren't safe because anything could happen at anytime online. One example is the bug from blockchain.info's wallet(Reference (http://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-info-issues-refunds-to-bitcoin-theft-victims/)). If you're planning to use online wallets just put in some decent amount and put the rest on a cold storage.

I am using blockchain.info from start because they don't store users data (atleast they encrypt your wallet file in client side before storing in their servers) but coinbase is just like centralized payment processor which don't give you access to private key of your bitcoin address. So if coinbase got hacked, you may lost all you have while if someone successfully stole wallets files from blockchain.info than they may get hard time to decrypt those wallet files to hack bitcoin each of those wallets contains.

However web wallets are not best place to store high amount of bitcoin, its better to use paper wallet or hardware wallet.

blockchain.info and coinbase is secure wallet online and they are the most recommended by peoples which is using bitcoin. but you need to remember that its better to save your bitcoin in your own wallet like bitcoin core or in your android phone because we can directly manage our bitcoin. i am not prefer with blockchain and coinbase, i'd prefer to save it in my pc.

It depends. It really depends on how much faith you are willing to put into someone else to keep your money safe. Bear in mind that they have no real incentive to keep your money safe but their reputation.

What's been quoted is unfair. An employee stealing from inside is not at all possible, because it ruins his entire career as well reputation of the industry. For this reason only everywhere we can see different sections like developers, analysts, inspection, content makers and so on. If an employee makes an mistake under some inspection he will be caught red handed. In my personal opinion online wallets were much safer.

I'd personally recommend using Blockchain.info for daily usage and storing small amounts of Bitcoin over there.
Use a hardware wallet or on offline wallet for big amounts.

Although Online wallets are not as safe as offline/hardware ones, you need them to spend Bitcoins on-the-go. :)

Out of coinbase and blockchain.info i will recommend you to use blockchain as they never gonna ask your personal details and they don't have control over your funds.

If you don't spend bitcoin daily or too often, paper/hardware wallet will be enough for you. No any online wallet and exchanger can be considered safe, all of them may go down or get hacked oneday.

These are the following features blockchain.info missing:

1. You cannot sign a message except if you import a network address. Signing a message is very useful in bitcoin world. Read this from Shorena https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=990345.0
2. There is no direct way to export your private keys

Moreover bc.i has hacked in the recent past http://thehackernews.com/2016/10/blockchain-bitcoin-website.html. I don't know anything about greenaddress.it so I am not the right person to answer.

-Depends how many bitcoins are you willing to store.
-You can use online wallets for regular day-to-day transactions involving lesser amounts Do not store more bitcoins than you can afford to lose on online wallets,
-If on blockchain.info,the first thing you do is back-up your phrase and wallet (in pdf and store it as securely as possible)
-Avoid coinbase on any costs.They're are a damn bank and not a wallet.

Hi, I don't know how safe is online wallet, but I'm using blockchain.info, last years and never had any problems with it, I'm using it for a small amount of BTC, because no one knows what will happen future, for big amount of course I use my PC wallet, it is more secure than a web wallet

What do you mean by PC wallet?

Yes web wallet are not secure but i think electrum like desktop wallet can be considered safer and as easy to use like web wallet.

I can give a positive feedback about Blockchain.info online wallet. Is it risk? Yes, the wallet can be hacked, BTCs can disappear, but they have mechanisms to make their system safe and the Bitcoins be stored safe.

If you can, use a desktop wallet, but if you don't have lots of money to be stored you can use an online wallet without problems. I'm using this service for more than 1 year now and never had any problem. I'm fine with this service and will continue using it.

In my opinion it is not simple to hack because the main reason behind the loss of anything is that what will happen If a person will hack these sites/wallet . These are only written data which is readed by many online data server at per transaction.
So basically it is impossible to hack and change something .

If the financial incentive is great enough, ruining their career and reputation is perfectly acceptable for some people. Keep in mind that it is much easier to steal and "hide" Bitcoins than doing the same with Dollars, for example, is.

An insider compromising blockchain.info is a legitimate concern, though I'm sure they've taken steps to minimize that risk.

Thanks for the link. I have read the reviews. Most of the issues are from 3 years ago. Surely blockchain.info must have fixed them and have improved their security ever since? We have not heard of any breaches or any funds lost as of late.

That's also a probability cause of why some so called hacking incident happened last year, if you know what I mean about bitfinex.

And it is what we called the inside job. But that is what I'm doing also when I was still new in bitcoin, I treat online wallets are safe.

But in the end when those issues come out, I realize that having your own hardware wallet or saving it on your computer will be better.

if you use coinbase you can't import/export, sign message
coinbase and blockchain i same about feature security
same feature 2fa

You can estimate how safe are online wallet when you check their "features".
Some web wallets have control of your money while some doesn't have like https://www.bitcoin.com/choose-your-wallet/greenaddress

Online wallets are pretty safe these days because of the fact that they can really be safe with as a example 2FA.

With 2fa its indeed solved for a big part, no one can really log in easy anymorw on your accounts so that is pretty nice.

Not a good choice to choose coinbase these days i experience of decreasing my balance in coinbase just few days after drop of the price of bitcoin also found many problem about their visa and bought bitcoin still not receive in their coinbase account..
So to be safe better to blockchain or much better to try electrum or bitcoin-qt..

No. Online wallets are more prone to vulnerabilities than offline/hardware ones. It doesn't matter if it has 2FA or not, that is for client-side security. Bitfinex had 2FA too and look what happened, it got hacked. What happened to Bitfinex could happen to any online wallet or exchange. They may never get hacked, but they can be. The risks are higher.
Use offline wallets for large amounts of Bitcoin and online wallets for smaller ones for convenience.

i use blockchain wallet currently and online wallet actually not really bad because my experience so far using these wallet are good and never had big issue for my wallet and they have high security system to secure funds users and i wasn't got hacked or losing my bitcoin during use them but if you not really sure with the security and also want to save huge amount of bitcoin i suggest you use offline wallet

Of course it is safe, it depends from our settings. Just turn on the security features 2FA, guaranteed safe. SMS verification is also very good, the Xapo and Coinbase always use the SMS feature when we log in, thereby ensuring security.

Not all online wallets are safe to use but I would prefer a blockchain.info online wallet to a desktop wallet as it has an extra layer of security to keep my funds safe from hackers.

think of most online wallets like banks.  is Bank of America safe? Yes.  Is John's Bank of Lower Iowa safe?  Maybe not.  Look at the length of time that a site has been around and look at the forums.  Also, keep in mind that while it is very cool to transfer your coins around, there is a fee for each transfer. 

Also, there are many viruses that make using an online wallet or using any BTC site that needs you to input your wallet address unsafe.  There are many viruses that simply monitor your clipboard for that magic 15 character string and replace it between copy and paste with an address of someone else.  Some of these are quite advanced and will even pick an address that begins and ends with the same characters as the one you just copied.  New coin wallets often have these viruses and while the dev promotes their coin, they care less about the value and future of their alt coin and more about people downloading and installing the wallet so that their virus gets spread.

Any time that you copy and paste your wallet address online, check to insure that the right address goes into the second site or you maybe sending your coins to someone else.  I honestly don't take that much time, but I do look at the first 4, last 4 and a random middle group when using a newer address and my main addresses I can pretty much see if something is wrong.

But, no matter how big, how old, or how trusted a site is, it can fail or be a scam.  Never put all your eggs in one basket and NEVER carelessly store funds that are vital to your life.  In fact, you may wish to not use vital funds for any alt coin, you just never know.  But, as others have said, the best bet is blockchain.info.

By many people these online wallets are not considered as safe as according to them they are to give your bitcoins to a third party. I am also thinking the same but I am using online wallets like xapo and blockchain from an year and I do not have faced any issue till now.

but also nothing is perfect.  too many people freak out if there is any delay at all in moving funds or whatever and then claim that the site is trying to steal from them, causing many others to withdraw.  sometimes there are things that happen.

Save bitcoin in the wallet online does have a high risk of getting hacked, and at the desktop wallet also have the risk of getting the virus so the potential loss is also great. All wallet has a high risk that indeed we should be more careful if you want to save bitcoin in wallet. But honestly I prefer to use the online wallet, because now online wallet has already excellent security. So bitcoin security that we save can be maintained and secure. Save bitcoin in wallet online or wallet desktop actual depends on each person, and if we can be careful to use it surely will remain safe.

They can be save but its on your own hands how you protect them and on what kind of online wallet of course.

Not all web wallets are safe or  provide the same security as blockchain.info which give you access to your private keys but the responsibility lies on us to use strong passwords to prevent unauthorized access.

Most of exchanges and online wallets always suffered from security problem like hacking and so more issue.I believe that blockchain.info is safest online wallet right now though.Mainly it depends owner choice what kind of wallet he need.If you are storing Bitcoin safely, then could be your best choice to use Hardware wallets that definitely for keeping your bitcoins safe.

using Xapo from years now and never had a single problem on it....but of course security depends by huiman factors first...keep your wallet (any) safe and yur funds are secure ;)

If its just a small amount then the answer is Yes . I think that blockchain and coinbase security is secured but we don't know if it will last long so an offline wallet with private keys are still recommended .

What do you mean? Your wallet can be hacked but it will be difficult . Never hacked any bitcoin wallets before so I don't know how long it will take to hacked one . If you mean the other thing which the whole system of coinbase . Many have tried but did not success and I doubt it will be hacked in just one day .

I'd have to say they are not so safe. Not as safe as having your bitcoins stored on a hardware wallet in terms of accessibility by only yourself and no one else gaining that access.
Once you lose some bitcoins having them stored this way then you will come to realize the security concerns people keep telling others about when it comes to using online wallets where they store the majority of their bitcoins.

the best online wallet and safe
if support and open service use private key
and founder and dev online wallet is never save private key user/client in server

Probably best pick is the Blockchain official wallet, have ots of options to securize wallet and funds!

I think all the online wallets are starting to get more advanced in terms of security so not just blockchain is the best option for storing bitcoin all the other online wallet are safe, the only thing that matters is the transaction confirmation time and the fees that they take, if you want to store your bitcoin store them online rather than offline because it is safer.

Even if they let you hold your private keys, your bitcoin is being kept by the third party and nothing can ensure that they will not steal your money in the future. And because they are online wallets, they can be hacked anytime, anywhere and I can ensure with you that the online security can never as strong as offline sercurity

Yes, you are absolutely right, there is a lot of risk if we save bitcoin on online wallet. As you say that if we save bitcoin on online wallet is the same in entrusting to third parties, so that any time there is a potential scam. And can also be exposed hacked at any time, so the risk is greater. But save on wallet offline there is also a potential risk of virus. All do have risks and we must be able to maintain it properly because bitcoin including valuable asset. Maybe it's better not to save bitcoin just in one wallet, but in some wallet both online and offline.

In any wallet either on online or offline wallet do really have some risk involved on losing out your bitcoin that's why we should really take precautionary measures for it to be avoided but comparing between the risk of the two,i could really say that online wallets do really have the more risk because you cant get the private key of your wallet which means incase it is being hacked then those coins are gone.

Yes you are right, the online wallet is very risky because we save bitcoin to third parties. But if the save on one of the online wallet that really can be trusted and have a good security technology I guess it was not a problem. Save bitcoin in offline wallet as well there is a potential loss of bitcoin if the devices we use problematic. It all depends on each person would rather save bitcoin in the online or offline wallet. The most important thing we have to care for and maintain because there are both lost potential, so must be careful to consider the risks.

And that's why all of the online wallets are prone into something bad that we are not expecting. It is better to accept the fact that they have good security but those intruders are going to do something in their full knowledge to penetrate an exchange / online wallet provider. It is secure if you are going to have your very own desktop wallet.

Simply NO, always save your coins in local wallet.

No one can guarantee that any wallet safe. I say that all there is an opportunity to steal. The safest thing is only one that is you can always control 24 hours 7 days a week. For better save you bitcoin to multiple wallet, so that if one of your wallet is stolen there are still others.

that is why we should really be responsible regarding on the security of our wallet and we should think to set up the needed security so that it will not be easily stolen by someone.Im using blockchain when it comes to online wallet because i can really say that they are secure for now and also you can already get the private keys on your wallet.

I think web wallets are not safe, because we always depends on to the provider of the web wallet, if they are exposed to hack, then all we're bitcoin missing, better use offline wallet or from android.

Of course local wallet are more safe then webwallet, but there's no way to access your funds when you are out of home

For this you can have more than one wallet, you can use a cold wallet for your savings, a local wallet (software) for shopping, and a web wallet for small amounts that you can spend on street (paying a coffee or similar).

Depending on what precautions you have put to avoid been hacked like enabling 2FA, never using same passwords.. I believe web wallets might be more secure than local wallets because its easy to lose funds on a desktop wallet than online account with the security features online wallets come with.

Whatever the precautions you will do and going to try to avoid about those hackers out there that wants to compromised the whole site of the wallet that you are using. They will be hacked, the security is just going to depend on how tough the security measures of the management. It is always better to have some back up wallets as desktop.

Quite the opposite in my opinion, local wallets are just basically storing your bitcoin on your pc which can be compromised by any malware and that can cause you to lose your bitcoin, however online wallets are designed to be totally secure and the keys are stored on servers, so they are pretty safe.

Those servers cannot be trusted all the times. Compared to that, storing bitcoins in a cold storage must be a good practice in my experience. Online wallets are good only when you are needing mobility of accessing your wallet from more than one place. Probably web wallets might be safer but basically bitcoins stay beyond our control.

actually they are not 100% safe I guess, they can be hacked some day if there's an intruder who is very expert with the security . but that doesn't mean that the web wallets that you have mentioned will be likely vulnerable and their databases will be easily accessed by someone but for some people who are expert in hacking it wouldn't be impossible so that it is still the best way to store your coin to a paper or hard wallet especially if it is a large amount .

All wallets can be hacked and manipulated by the owners or else i side job but i trust blockchain where i can stocked up all my coins from trading and other activities i do online with bitcoin. I hate coinbase because it always chance address once you received payments.

If mandatory steps are taken, Web Wallets a kind of safer than other means. There is always a risk of hack but not to individual accounts if proper steps taken. Sometimes, whole site get hook up which creates problem but Coinbase and Block chain are big players. You can trust them!

Of course, everything is definitely there is a risk, how it is best to keep to some wallets. Do not ever save your money in a wallet only, in addition, don't share to public our address and use a feature of the VAULT, so when the transfer takes a long time and additional confirmation.

It is not advisable to store large amount of bitcoins to online wallets, best is to store it in your offline storage/cold storage to avoid such hackings and stealing your money. 

Thats correct much better to have offline storage if you are planning to store a huge  amount of btc but if you are just planning to use web wallet as an alternative to exchange your btc to fiat its still worthy to do that as those web wallet also protecting their names and business to assure  members.

No, they are not safe enough and sometimes they can steal your money if they want to. I have a bad experience with Coinbase and I swear to God I will never spend any Bitcoin to it. Here is my story: I received 0.2 from my friends but the balance only showed 0.18. Then, I wrote a ticket to the coinbase support. They refused to help me and they said that the country which I live in is not supported by coinbase. Yeah. Damn it. I lose 0.02 for nothing