Bitcoin Forum

I bought bitcoin some time ago as an investment and am wondering if there's anything I need to do in regard to keeping my investment secure and/or up to date and what should I do in regard to the various forks that have happened over the past few years?

The reason I ask is that, I keep a watching brief on bitcoin and have seen various articles referring to recycling addresses so they don't get stale and also splitting larger bitcoins with just the one address, into smaller amounts in multiple addresses.

I've also seen various articles referring to bitcoin mixers, but then wonder about the legitimacy especially when there's related articles referring to laundering/washing.

Similarly, I also invested in Ethereum and have the same questions as above.

Would appreciate any advice.

Thanks in advance!

You have taken the right step by always watching every bitcoin development. I think you have invested in the right place, because bitcoin has always been the crypto king and is the most popular today. Well, my advice to you is: Keep and maintain with any conditions. Don't sell ,only for negative news about bitcoin. Welcome and Goodluck for you guys!

Your top priority is storing funds in properly generated cold storage wallets, in unused addresses. Read about some different methods here (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage). It's really important to keep your keys offline in case your online PC or phone gets compromised by malware.

Regarding forks, I wouldn't bother with anything besides the most valuable forks (like Bitcoin Cash/SV) since those wallets are relatively easy to verify as safe. Always sweep your BTC into new addresses (preferably in cold storage) before attempting to recover forked coins. If a fork wallet ends being up coin-stealing malware, you don't want to give it access to your precious bitcoins!

You didn't mention wallets much. I would suggest a hardware wallet or software offline wallet like Exodus.

I like Electrum for speed, and Bitcoin-core for safety. Of course you can make cold (paper) wallets with either.
You can move your funds from one address to another, even within the same wallet if you want.

I don't think you need to do anything, if you have your privatekey or seed words safe. If it were me, i would do any such operations (ie. moving funds from a cold wallet to another) from a live iso running linux.

Of course you can create a new cold wallet using the same linux live iso. Boot Lubuntu (https://lubuntu.net/downloads/) or simillar, install Electrum, make a new wallet, copy the seed words manually (by hand) in a sheet of paper, print or copy the wallet addresses and turn off the pc. And now you have (new) cold wallet unreacheable from the net.

Just remember those seed words need to be safeguarded, and make another copy (by hand as well) and store it in a physically different place.

Electrum is a good wallet, just make sure it is downloaded from the official source and updated from there as well. Don't fall for the recent scam where it asked users to update and it was redirected to a scam site and many lost their coins

You've make the right choice by choosing bitcoin so all you need is stay focus and straight minded ,don't be deceive by what you here or read on the news ,hold on tight and keep your private keys safe

Electrum is good, I've used it before when the first fork happened as the result of bitcoin cash. But after reading things regarding security and getting tips from the people here, I decided to purchase my own hardware wallet(ledger nano s).

I have no worries with it and it's support is very active when you have questions to ask.

Thanks for all your feedback and advice guys.

I'm looking at keeping my bitcoins for the long term, so no worries about the naysayers for me.

I also use Electrum and cold wallets, so apologies for not explaining that up front.

I guess the main thing I was concerned about was the various forks and sweeping into new addresses.

Guessing the age of various addresses doesn't really come into it (in terms of them being old) thanks to the blockchain ledger.

Think I'll do an early spring clean on a live distro.

Cheers!

Bitcoin and ethereum are the most familiar coins in the crypto world, so I think you have chosen the right place to invest. Keep doing the research so that you won't be caught up in the warmth that happened in the crypto world.

I would like to shorten my advice to you at one very important point
 storage, to you feel safe on your investment
You must have a cool wallet like Nano
To be safe from hacking.

The basic things that we have to make any changes is to be very simple and it will be the technical problems will not be seen in our eyes it will be only hear from something so it will be more easier when you have update yourself as the investor.

just don't forget that digitally stored stuff (like storing your wallet file on a USB disk and storing it in your safety deposit box) aren't as durable as you may think! they need electricity otherwise they lose the data that is stored on them over the long haul. so you may also want to explore other methods of keeping a backup such as printing your Electrum seed (preferably encrypted) on a paper

Exodus is not a good wallet let alone be a offline wallet. You can check this,

https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

And choose the best wallet that fits your need. Remember, "not your keys not your coins" so better understand clearly how to store privatekey safely and to back them up as well. As for the various forks, maybe this one can help you out, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2836875.0

I recommend electrum but be sure to always keep it updated and in a secure computer.  For example I never download torrents, email attachments, visit shady websites, porn etc..

If you have enough to spare I do recommend a hardware wallet to protect your Bitcoin. 

I will tackle your question about the legality of mixer and why it is essential to use them. Bitcoin was developed by Satoshi to be pseudo anonymous, so if you use it incorrectly <re-using addresses>you make it possible for people to track your bitcoins back to you and they can see how much coins you have and where you are spending it.

The mixer services help you to break that chain, so that your financial matters can be protected from people who might want to steal your coins or who wants to infringe on your financial freedom.

This gives you more or less the same level of financial privacy as when you are using cash. <Normal people cannot just go onto the Blockchain and see how much bitcoins you have and where it is going>  ;)