Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

I was wondering that. I am looking into investing a lot of money (about 30 BTC) and
now I wanted to know if it's really secure and what type of software (mac preferrably)
should I use to make sure that I won't get scammed.

Any help is very much appreciated, thank you!

-Evank91

It's been around for 5 year and it's proved to be pretty much secure after all this time.
If you mean future proof like for scalability issues then there are some concerns but developers are aware of everything and they are working on them.

No system is 100% safe when it's online.  So your best bet is to get your coins onto your wallet on your Mac. Encrypt your wallet and backup your entire wallet onto a USB drive.  Erase your wallet software VERY WELL, do a SECURE ERASE.  Store your USB in a safe, when you want to spend some Bitcoin, plus in your drive and run the wallet and move some funds to an ONLINE wallet, like blockchain.info.  Unplug your USB stick when your done, and store it.  Use your phone NOT your browser (JUST IN CASE YOU HAVE KEY LOGGERS), to move funds to another party.  Never store a lot of BTC on your online wallet.  This the probably the safest ways I can think of to using your Bitcoin.  If anybody has a better system, please share!

PS: Hit Eject when unplugging your USB drive.  Sometimes it can damage your USB drive if you do not do that.  Also make multiple copies onto multiple USB drives.  So in case one goes bad.

Make sure your computer is clean from malware first.
Test Bitcoin on your computer with small amounts first for few days to be sure

Its going to be interesting to see if Bitcoin implements any of the features present in some of its competitor alt-coins.  If it wants to survive, that's what it needs to do.  Evolve or die.

I agree, could go either way.

Offline paper wallet generated on a computer that has never been online before
Use web wallets sparingly and only keep small amounts of spendable coin there

I dont think its secure. there will be a few attacks and nobody wants to have BitCoins but real cash in his bank account

I would say that BTC is fairly secure as long as people take the proper precautions.  However in terms of future proof, i don't think so with how easy it is for other crypto currencies can be made.  Any new currency can learn from some of the disadvantages of Bitcoin to create a better product.

Hey, whats up?

What do you think about doge coin?

I've just started mining this on my PC (although I have and AMR 6870 and i can't get through 80Khash... but I think is decent)

I'm new on this world but I think is going to be worthwhile :)

Sry about my bad english!

I see people talking about new currencies and see on coin wars they list them all out but how are thease all able to sustain?  And how can you tell if they are legit?

I guess out end goals are all similar convert to btc and then cash or product.

I don't think there is a safe long term play for holing bitcoins.  But hey Iam sure many said that about apple stock :)

Personally Iam into bitcoins and lite coins.

Noting is 100% secure and full proof.  You should hedge your risk.

There isn't any coin wars or something. Just some people making a lot of fuss about nothing.

I agree with that. :)

Maybe there isnt a coin war at the moment, BTC is still concidered the coin, but i doubt it will stay that way for a long time.

My main concern at the moment is security of crypto currencies it seems that we need an offline computer with a paper wallet + a USB key, i mean how common people could even think of getting into cryptos?

Thats an overkill in terms of security. If you talk about savings in bitcoins (wallets that you don't actually use everyday) then encrypting the wallet and making a backup in the cloud for example is more than enough.

For your day to day transactions you have to keep your computer clean like you do for every other online transaction like when you use credit cards paypal etc.

Future proof, in essence, no.
Eventually something will be able to crack SHA-256.

Secure, right now?  Yes.

One of the big selling cards for me getting into btc was that even if sha256 or ecdsa began to break far in the future the network can transition to a stronger algorithm relatively easily with majority support and contingency plans are already in place. btc will have bumps and swells but with momentum this thing may never die.

Yes it is threatened already by alts like quark and dogecoin  ::)

One of the big questions is whether or not the internet is "future proof" or secure.  While Bitcoin may not be around forever, we must nurture the idea of decentralization, and take it farther than simply currency.  I had heard the other day that the crypto community now has enough money to launch its own internet satellites.


Looks like Google is getting nervous too:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57608585-93/is-google-building-a-hulking-floating-data-center-in-sf-bay/

http://www.google.com/loon/