Bitcoin Forum

Which is the safest wallet to use?

 I'm buying a laptop that will always be offline and used just to store my bitcoins. I'm wondering which would be the safest wallet to use to store the coins.

a laptop just for bitcoin, that works as a private bank, was also my idea, but i opted for a less cumbersome way like the simple usb stick, the key is just to be offline

but with a laptop you can use your coin if you want, if the environment is secure enough

In my personal opinion make a paper wallet and back those paper wallets up with copies. Laminate all of these paper wallets and store the second and maybe third copies at separate locations.

any bitcoin wallet can be the safest as long as:
* it is a legit wallet which has been around and has been tested for many years.
* you download it from the real source, meaning official website or compile it directly from its source code on GitHub.
* you check and verify the signature of the downloaded file
* you install and keep the installed wallet on an airtight offline computer which has always been clean and is only used for purpose of storing your wallet and nothing else.
* or use the wallet/code to generate a paper wallet (printing the private keys on paper)

you can use bitcoin core, Armory, Electrum, Multibit, bitaddress...

i think every wallet has a good security for the members and if there is any hole with the wallet, the dev will trying to fix and make an update so the users can download it directly. you can trying to use desktop wallet which is bitcoin-qt, multibit, electrum and many else and you can used whatever you want.

A hardware wallet like ledger nano or trezor should be fine.

Use the laptop to create paper wallets and never go online with it again. If you want to re-use it, buy a new hard drive and substitute the hard drives when you want to go online. Just remember that paper wallets have to be printed and laminated, if you want to store them for long periods. {Cool & Dry place} Do not generate them and keep them in digital format for long periods. {electronics can fail} The printer you use, is also a possible risk factor. < It has built in memory or cache and can be read once it is online, so buy some cheap old printer that will stay offline too >  ^smile^

 

If you are planning to buy a laptop simply for storing bitcoins then I'd recommend buying a Ledger Nano S instead. If you want to go with something cheaper/free, go with a paper wallet (laminated just for more extra safety)

Electrum works fine for me.

Hardware wallets like Ledger wallet might be worth a look too

The most important thing is to always update the security of the Laptop and prepare periodic data backups. The case of ransomware should be a lesson on how to secure data including wallet.

I'd recommend using a hardware wallet for daily usage and paper wallet for cold storage.
Or, buy a cheap laptop just for storing Bitcoin and alts and use electrum. I use Asus Eeebook, costs around $200.

dude he's talking about an offline computer, which is the only safe way to keep coin safe. keep to the topic, huh?

@op how the big boys roll: http://trilema.com/2013/how-to-airgap-a-practical-guide/

In my opinion, I would recommend you to use one between the four as I consider them being the best
Electrum
Bitcoin Core
Bitcoin Knots
Armory

If you don't have any kind of money that is extra and can be used for buying some offline storage and you only got internet and laptop or desktop then using a desktop wallet is good for you as long as it has good feed backs and also if it already built some good reputation in different communities like electrum which is what i'm using right now.

I am using electrum and its ok with me, I can save my wallet.dat and private keys. I feel safe with it unless someone hacks the system. All standalone wallet is ok IMHO as you have control with your wallet.

There is no best wallet for comparison between wallets offline, because they are all safe, and they have similar features. For offline wallets (hardware wallet), you are the only person who can secure your money, as long as you do not let anyone know your private key, they can not steal your money.

In my long time in earning bitcoin, I think all wallets that we've used to store our bitcoin/coins are safest and secured. All administrator of the wallet has the trick on how to be secured their wallet. They want to be trusted and reliable to encourage people to use their wallet via online or offline. I haven't used anymore offline wallet but I'm pretty sure that is safe.

If you plan on holding Bitcoin for a very long time then I would suggest that you get Bitcoin core and use that to hold your Bitcoins. The time it requires for you to download the whole blockchain will be a while though if you have a bunch of free space on your computer then i would recommend that you get that instead of any other Bitcoin client.

OP, screw what anyone else told you... ^^^^^ THIS is all you need!

Go use Vanitygen, get yourself some addresses and pub/priv keys, print it in triplicate, laminate and store in locked, secured places.

By using Vanitygen, you get addresses and keys without ever having to use a third party or sync a Bitcoin client, and you can even attempt to get an address with a custom starting word or name!

This is a good idea and I'm also planning this to do so. No other transactions, applications/sofware should be installed for that laptop. It will be your very own storage. Just make sure you hav safe vault for the laptop for safekeeping. And I have my choice which is bitcoin core for the wallet. I guess all of them are safe so its base on my own comfort.

There is nothing that can compete with Trezor or Ledger Nano S for long term storage, online or offline. Of course these are hardware wallets so they have an initial cost but anyone who is looking to conserve their coins for a really long time need to buy one of these, now with the price of bitcoin this up they only cost about 0.06 for a Trezor even cheaper and about 0.025 a Leder Nano S.

If you can't afford a hardware wallet then paper wallets or any other wallet who supports cold storage like Armory,Electrum etc. I insist on the hardware wallet though because it is a hassle free experience.

From what I can understand, your Trezor wallet is backed by a paper wallet. (The 12 seed words)
How does Trezor keep your coins safe in the long term?

Wouldn't it be equivalent to creating a securely made paper wallet? (For long term)

Yes, an offline laptop is a good choice. Then you can put Electrum on it to store your coins.
For a better security you should write your seed on a piece of paper and store it in a safe place (even better if you remember it in your brain). Also, you may consider to save a copy of your wallet and export your private keys. It's very easy to do it with Electrum.

I think to store bitcoin we should use some laptops to make paper wallets..can use many different laptops but i prefer to use Ledger Nano S

Oh this is way risky using a USB drive for your wallet keys.
I will never use it and even advice it to someone to use a USB stick for this purpose because the usb is not a reliable source it can be corrupted at any time and could be lost as well.  The laptop is on one of the best option for securing your key in it.

Some saying that offline wallet is the best and safer to stored the bitcoin. But i think no one is safe because as we can see that offline wallet and online wallet are the same that someone work on it.
Its look like a bank all bank are not safe to stored your money because once bank closed you will have a big problem how to return your money.

Using Armory on top of Bitcoin-Qt was how we used to do cold storage with two computers. One had your private keys on the offline computer, with a watching only wallet on the online half. Shuttle your transactions back and forth on a USB to sign and broadcast. Pretty much everyone switched to using Trezor when they came out in 2014. Then Ledger came along. There are still die hard Armory fans but most recognize the convenience and security of a hardware wallet. Trezor and Ledger have a hard time keeping them in stock.

Why buy an entire laptop? Couldn't you just get another (maybe external, maybe internal) hard drive, put your wallet there, then take it off the base machine?

Paper Wallet or a Desktop wallet that is backed up on something that is paper or something along those lines is going to be your best bet when it comes to longevity. I wouldn't know if I'd trust something that's goibng to be a hardware wallet as who knows what they make those with and in the end if it breaks or something you're going to be left with a paper wallet backup anyway, so you're kinda left in the same case.

Though, if you're going to be using a paper wallet I'd try to have as many backups as you can in multiple SECURE locations. I have this for SOME of the BTC that I have, it Isn't much at this point but I think it's pretty cool IMO.

Paper wallets are the most cumbersome way to hold bitcoin long term. You have to take precautions that the private key is not exposed during creation or spending that you avoid with hardware wallets.

In my opinion the safest long term holding is in hardware wallet such as ledger or trezor and then put the key to that backed up in like a safety deposit Box

Paper wallet is pretty safe too

I think you can use a light wallet like electrum to create your wallet, store the secret seed on some paper and back-up the wallet on some CD or a usb stick in a safe place.

What ever you do and how ever you store your bitcoins they will end up in a private key, one of the most convenient methods to store bitcoins for me of course after having a core wallet on a separate computer is generating addresses offline using bitaddress.org then saving addresses with their keys.
Another option which is convenient as well is visiting directory.io and entering a random page like: directory.io/30866184577
and picking 10 addresses with their keys and saving them in a text file.

Even I cringe at this... I just CAN't for the LIFE of me allow someone else to hash a BTC privkey for me and serve it through HTTP... no, just no, I won't do it.

You want ULTIMATE security, you use a paper wallet. You do that by making your OWN offline keys using Vanitygen on a PC with no internet connected. Put the keys on paper, in triplicate, store, and just send all your BTC to that address.

Then when you are ready to start using it, all you have to do is import that privkey into ANY wallet and the coins will be there.

Second time I have posted this here... there is no safer way... not even hardware wallets, laptops, hard drives, USB... none of it. All have failure points. A paper wallet's only failure point is your failure to be secure about storing them.

Yeah many of the people are talking about to use a hardware wallet and also for the cold storage the paper wallet.
I know that electrum is one of the best private wallet to use it is more secure and it needs not enough space as well you can easily keep it in the laptop and even in the android phone if you are a skilled person.

Paper wallet is good. Also do not listen to the people on here that have no known track  record for success.  A flash drive is fine provided that you have another back up and that the drive is stored in the proper method.  We have two cases of properly stored flash drives that have more than 1000 wallets of different coins, more than 10 BTC's worth of value and they have never failed when being pulled out and put to use.

Wow this is a great idea. This is something really cool. I wish I could tell you the exact number of the Bitcoins that I am holding but unfortunately in this system one can’t trust because the data can be hacked anytime and it is easy for the hackers to loot all the holdings. But anyway your idea is a nice one.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but what is the advantage of taking it out of an online wallet like Coinbase? Is it just that you are afraid that the provider might get owned and lose your $$?

Yes, that's exactly what the reason is.
Storing your Bitcoins on an online wallet is not safe as all as they might get hacked. (Has already happened a lot times.)

Also, Coinbase is known for freezing customer accounts without giving any reason. (Which sucks)

Storing Bitcoins in an HD wallet is safer, because you control your own Bitcoins.

I think all desktop wallets are safe enough, you just need to install anti-virus or anti-malware on your laptop so no one will hack in your wallet. I've been using desktop wallets from 2013 and to date there's no problem whatsoever when I'm using desktop wallet (bitcoin core)

The safest wallet to use IMO is Armory, using it to generate addresses offline in a computer not accessible to the internet or by anyone other than you is one of the most secure methods in my opinion, specially with a password to encrypt them. That is one of the most secure long term wallets, the difficulty lies in Armory being a little hard to use for a complete newbie.

an offline wallet using either bitaddress.org offline or armory based bit address generating ability, there are other options like blockchain.info which are working for years and is very secure and can enable you to save the coins for long-term storage.

There is no need to buy a whole laptop for the just purpose of storing bitcoin. I prefer a paper wallet is the best method for cold storage for a long time, as long as you keep the paper safe its the best method. If you don't want paper wallet then you can just buy any hardware wallet and store BTC in it, a good hardware wallet is Trezor. But if stull you want to cold store BTC on lapton then any decent desktop wallet show be fine, electrum, MultibitHD, bitcoin core/qt or armory are good choices.

Thanks  :)
I guess its a tradeoff though because you could use that argument to stop trusting anything on the internet, at which point the best solution is to not have a computer lol. But yea I guess if the wallet isn't very trustworthy you can at least trust yourself

You don't need to use a laptop to store your Bitcoin, all you need is a hardware, plug in your hardware, send Bitcoin to that (use  ledger nano or trezor) and do not let that hardware connect to the Internet anymore

The more secure and easiest way of storing bitcoins is download electrum and install it, you will get your passphrase which is the main key to open your wallet any where , you can even delete you whole wallet but just remember your passphrase. because with this passphrase you can rebuild your wallet anywhere any time for this you also dont need to sync as it is easy to use.

Why even use a laptop to secure just a little wallet file. It's cute that you had this idea because I had this idea before too. But then I realized is it worth buying a new laptop just to store one wallet? A laptop is a device. It can get soaked, thus, destroyed. It can be dropped. All of things can happen and so I thought a flash drive is even better. It can be dropped but it's not going to destroy itself since it's basically weightless.

I'm using electrum offline wallet that's saved on a USB flash drive. Trezor and all those hardware wallets use the same hardware with USB and so they have the same lifespan. I think people are just trying to be fancy whenever they use Trezor. You don't need to spend $100 just for an offline wallet.

Funds of any wallet can be stolen if someone finds out about your password or found your seed. It doesn't matter which device did you use.

I think paper wallet is safe if your having very less bitcoin like less than 2 bitcoin. But i would recommend hardware wallet if your having good ammount of bitcoin

In both cases the actual amount doesn't really matter. Paper wallets largely are meant for people that aren't planning to make use of their coins any time soon. Hardware wallets give people more flexibility as they don't only allow you to securely store your coins, but it also allows you to securely transact with the outside world -- that's the added benefit that hardware wallets offer over paper wallets.

There will always be paranoia though of the possibility of a backdoor somewhere in a hardware wallet.

When you are talking about offline storage though I assume its not meant to be transacted anytime in the near future in which case a paper wallet is the best. Store it in a safe or a bank safety deposit box for the long term.

It's not entirely impossible, but the point is that you at some point will import your private keys into whatever client. In this case the chances that your private keys may get compromised are quite on the same level, maybe even higher -- paranoia always exists.


Paper wallets are the cheapest form of storage, but it was just to point out that there is an extra form of usability when it comes to hardware wallets. That these hardware wallets support secure transactions, doesn't mean you have to use it to transact frequently. It serves very well as long term offline storage too.

The wallet I could suggest to you was Multibi hd, bitcoin core and electrum they are good to store our bitcoin.
even offline, it is very safe and secured.

Paper wallets are definitely safest way to go. You placed a good bet. Remove hard disk. Set up Tails OS on USB disk. Don't use persistence, unless system don't detect your printer. Don't connect computer to networks and secure system blocking network traffic in More options during booting Tails OS. Then connect bitaddress.org USB disk that you got from online computer. Generate paper wallets and print them without exposing it online.

I was relatively new to the paper wallets too. So I started this post that might be helpful

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1965815.msg19583573#msg19583573

  I wanted to make sure the paper wallet was valid and that my coins would not be sent into oblivion or worse the private and public key were not a match.

  I tested one wallet with $10 and swept it to make sure I would be able to retrieve,. it worked..but as You can see once swept you should never use again.

  I also have a Trezor. So I split between the paper and Trezor. Also my laptop acts as a cold storage since it will never connect to the internet.

  Goodluck
   

Computer and Laptop is not the right choice to store bitcoin safely for a long time. You better buy bitcoin wallet hardware, it will be much better. You do not have to worry when your computer is exposed to a virus and you can lose all the data you have. Imagine how much money can be lost, it is not worth the price of existing bitcoin wallet hardware.

paper wallet for me. 3 copies. its free =)

I only believe in paper wallet because they are easy to make and you only need a good printer and also a durable paper so you can have the safest and cheapest cold storage of all time. You can also add some assurance for your paper wallet to last for long by just laminating it so you can add more years or life to your paper wallet and you don't need to worry about the security of your bitcoins or any cryptocurrencies anymore.

The point is all wallet is quite the same on features and usage. The thing is we need a suitable wallet in depends on our transaction. Some wallets is intend for transaction. But if you are looking a wallet for holding or a long term hold i suggest to find a high security bitcoin wallet where you can hold your bitcoin for a long time. And i also suggest to choose or to use one or more wallet for you to lessen the risk in losing bitcoin. But if you are good on choosing one it is also okay as long as you will manage it well.

It doesn't matter which wallet you use. It can be a desktop wallet, paper wallet, or hardware wallet. Web wallets are the least secure one since the website might run away, and the website and yourself can get hacked. Web wallets that have private keys even exposes you to another attack which is finding the private key somewhere.

Regardless of which wallet you use, the seed/private keys will always be the most important thing to put in the safest place. You can spend a hundred dollars on trezor and still get hacked when someone found the paper that has your seed. In conclusion, your wallet is just as secure as you make it. You can put the paper with the seed in the vault and delete the wallet file generated. This way, the only way for your bitcoins to get stolen is by getting that paper from the vault. You can also place the paper somewhere else if you feel that vaults aren't secure enough for your precious bitcoins.