Bitcoin Forum

instead of printing off a paper wallet is it possible to instead write down an address' keypair/ would I be able to restore from just this combination?

Yes, that's correct. Just make sure you write it down correctly.

That is a paper wallet.

How you choose to make the marks on the paper or any other material that communicate the key combination doesn't matter, as long as it isn't going to get lost or degrade, or the marks become illegible or disappear before you need to use them.

Writing them down may actually be safer, but as others have said, make sure you get the keys right. You could also take a picture of them etc.

If you do a transaction from your written keypair,
you HAVE to pay attention to how the change mechanism works.

By default, you will send the change of your transaction to another address in your wallet, so this returned amount will not be on your saved keypair.

Please someone correct me if I wrote something wrong.

You could have your Wallet address and Private keys tattoo'd on your body, much like people get tattoos with information about their allergies and medical conditions. 

Scarification of the buttocks would be pretty hipster :)

Personally I like to chisel them into stone like the romans for a full scale vintage effect.

How do you keep the monoliths from prying eyes?  :P

You build a pyramid around it with lots of booby traps. You seal it, then you let it be known that the whole thing is cursed and death shall fall upon those who dare to enter. That should keep it safe for a few centuries...

If he ever finds that he wants the coins back though, the adventure would be epic.   ;D

Indiana Jones and the temple of crypto....

How many BTC do you put in this hypothetical temple? Challenge accepted! haha

You can print paper wallets by using Armory on top of bitcoin-QT.

QR code of the public address on your forehead, QR code of the privkey on your buttocks.  ;)

LOL, nice one.  :)

The private key is all you need but noting it down by hand is risky. If you make a mistake you will loose money.

I suggest an electrum wallet seed instead. It consists of 12 English words. When you first run electrum you write the seed down and then read it from paper and enter it in the next window. If you wrote it down incorrectly the wallet doesn't get created so this saves you from loosing coins to mistakes.

Why paper wallet? Just use 20 character+ password and throw your wallet.dat on dropbox or googledrive.

Im actually curious, not trying to be flip...

With a paper wallet, the key is stored offline in clear text. Anybody who has physical (or just visual) access to the paper wallet can withdraw the BTC.