Bitcoin Forum

Cold storage = paper wallet, offline computer, secure hardware wallet, etc.

What do you think is the ideal percentage of BTC that should be kept in a cold wallet? Is there a trade-off between usability vs. security? If someone intends to hodl their bitcoins long term then perhaps 90 percent in cold storage sounds good. If someone is using their bitcoins to buy things, gamble, day trade, and invest in altcoins, then I would imagine 90 percent would be a pretty unrealistic figure.

What do you think?

hypothesized capital: 100 BTC

If you want to stay in a safe condition, you have to put 90% of this capital in a cold storage, and the other 10% in your wallet that must be protect in every way.

You could use different wallets on different computers and so on for extra security ( not keeping all eggs in one basket ).
Keep as much as you usually spend, that's probably the only advice someone can give you. It's up to everyone to do so.

Well depends on the ammount you have. If you have 1 BTC or less you don't give a fuck about cold storage. If you have 20 BTC, than keep what you need for your purchases off cold wallet and put others in cold wallet.

Store 100% of the bitcoins that you aren't going to spend soon in "cold storage".

The ONLY bitcoins that you should have in a hot wallet are the ones you plan to spend in the near future.

Simple.

IMO, it depends on how much and how often you spend your bitcoin.
If you are not going to spend your bitcoin, you can put 100% of all bitcoin in a cold storage, but if you going to spend 1 btc a week, you could keep 2 btc in your personal hot wallet (with a good password of course) and replenish it every 2 weeks. :)

What percentage of your paycheck do you keep in your wallet, in a checking account, in a savings account, in other investments?  If you have multiple accounts and distribute your money between them, follow that same pattern with your BTC.  It's a lot easier eating a small transaction fee for moving the money around than it is eating a loss of your coin because your hot wallet was compromised.

This is pretty much it.

I feel like it shouldn't be a percentage. Unless you're a trader, it should be mostly ALL with the exception of some BTC used for buying things (under 10BTC for sure)

I think you should only have something in your hot wallet if you are going to be spending it in any time soon.

If you are not actively trading bitcoin, you should store 100% of it in cold storage.

Thats a good idea but at some point you'll maybe want to purchase something from a website with Bitcoin or off another useer. so I think that should be the only time you put a certain amount in a hot wallet.

Basically, what you can afford to lose. That's the definition of a hot wallet. But I often don't follow that rule myself. :/

Cold storage should be 98% of your coins, im using site from sig to store mine offline on beautiful paper wallet :)

There's no percentage just have what you are not going to be using in the immediate future put in a cold wallet.

This.

Don't keep more than a couple hundred bucks worth of btc in a web wallet.

I would say most so like 70% and the remaining 30% is on-hand for use of whatever you want.

Depends. If you are in aggressive instance, you can keep all in hot wallets for trade or to take quick advantage of price flutuactions and others oportunities.

If your main investment is not bitcoin, or if you are not a risk-prone investidor, you better 100% cold.

Anything between, part cold, part hot.

Its very easy to use an offline wallet, and complete transactions quickly while its stored securely offline. This can be done in under 10 minutes in most cases, alot faster if you have practice. I would store every coin you have offline unless you need access to some immediately. Always use 2 Factor authentication when possible if you store your coins on online wallets.

I would research the Armory wallet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=139601.0

Also if you can just download the vanity address generator and create private/public key pairs offline. Create backups of the keys on paper and/or encrypt them with a PGP key and save off the files on secure storage. Format the machine, and install another operating system before it is allowed to connect to the internet to ensure your keys were not saved and will not be broadcast to the internet. Alternatively if your storing serious coin, just buy a new hard drive and destroy the old one after formatting a few times.

Put any bitcoin you can't afford to lose on cold storage. This is my advice.

Keep only what you're going to need to spend and then a little extra on a hot wallet.  You can always move coins from your cold storage, but if your hot wallet gets hacked you would much rather it be a small amount than half of everything you own

I myself keep 80% of my bitcoin in my cold wallet, not only to limit any hacking losses but also my gambling losses. ;D

im keeping 100% because im investing long

I keep 60% on cold storate. 30% for trading and 10% in the hot wallet.

I put all my bitcoins on cold storage.

I keep 30-60% in cold storage, depending on my long term outlook. The rest I keep on exchanges to trade and/or hold value in fiat until I see a strong rally to jump onto.

I think this is a good plan.

I have 0.1 BTC in a online wallet, at all times. If the balance goes to 0.2 I will transfer 0.1 BTC to a paper wallet.

If I need more than 0.1 BTC I only sweep a paper wallet with 0.1 BTC and destroy the wallet afterwards.

Once the paper wallet is sweeped, I consider the private key compromised.

This way, I reduce my risk of getting hacked and losing all my coins, to be VERY low.

If you want to hold you Bitcoin for few times than 100%. Otherwise it would be 50%.

Imho people should keep 90% of any worthy stock in a cold wallet, or even more considering your daily use and the amount you need to have access to at anytime.

There is no universal answer.

If you have just a small amount of bitcoin, you probably won't bother to create a cold wallet.
On the other hand, if you expect to receive and send bitcoin out in significant amounts regularly, you probably would keep more of your bitcoin in your hot wallet so that you don't need to touch your cold wallet so often.

IMHO, you should only keep the amount you can lose in your hot wallet, and leave the rest of your bitcoin in your cold wallet.

Best is what ever you don't need to spend quickly.  If you think long term holding.... then cold storage.  You really don't want to have to use your cold storage daily.  I think its more based on expected spending.

100% for sure, look at the past news, what we've had? The cloud, no thanks, look at all the celebrities getting their shit reelased. Exchanges? No thanks, sooner or later, everyone has gotten fucked overy exchanges, Mt Gox being the biggest fraud of all times in terms of exchanges being closed and money never being delivered back. With Bitcoin, unless you are storing your stuff on an offline computer, you are at risk.

Don't think in terms of %s, think in terms of what you need to spend vs what you want to save
Spending coin in "hot wallets", saved coins in "cold" wallets

Cold storage would be advisable for most of your btc. I usually keep around 1 bitcoin in a hot wallet for buying goods and trading and the rest is offline. Any profit that takes my hot wallet over my 1 btc 'limit' goes straight into cold storage.

I only have 0.7, so why would I buy anythnig with it? Doesn't make more sense that I just save all of it in cold storage? Thats what im doing so far tho. I don't get why I would want to buy some common good I can buy with FIAT, with the little BTC i have now.

Im new and only have 0.1... why should I spend any of it?
What should I do with it?

I suggest you have a look here: https://bitpay.com/directory#/ (https://bitpay.com/directory#/)

A quick Google brings up some voucher sites too.

If not, keep it for sentimental reasons. You never know, Bitcoin could hit hit 1,000,000, then you'd have a lot of money.  ;)

None.  You should keep you Bitcoins in more volatile alts.

It is really up to you. You may want to gamble with it, or you may want to buy some products (eg. T-shirts, gift cards) or services.
If you don't want to buy anything with your bitcoin, you can just keep it in your cold wallet and wait for a higher price.

not everyone can keep 98% of their coins in cold storage, but keep as much as u can its my advice