Bitcoin Forum

Hello bitcoin sages,

Could you please tell me: Is there a way to store bitcoin on a laptop/ usb drive / mobile without needing a lot of HDD / SD card space ?

I need a wallet / solution file that would not take up space, yet be accessible at (a fairly) short notice

Much love

You should look at one of the "lighter" wallets such as Multibit (https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet for choices).

Electrum is pretty great. You don't have to download the entire blockchain and become a node. It's my personal favorite wallet for Windows.

Take a look at your options here: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Outside of Bitcoin Core and Armory, most wallets are lightweight.

Don't download the official qt one if you want to save space. Go for a lite client which you can use right away. You could also use an online blockchain.info wallet.

Just make a paper wallet that you store on a laptop, on your usb drive or on a mobile but it would be better to encrypt the wallet, the paper wallet and to make at least one back-up because you don't want to lose your bitcoins if you lose or destroy your usb or your mobile

Electrum or Armory, if using a mac, I think multibit is an option too. Otherwise, coinbase works well.

funny you asked this
i just found this thread a couple of hours ago at Bitcoin Discussion section:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=853288.msg9538526
take a look, it is an step by step guide

p.s. haven't tried it myself YET

Thanks, will try this out.

Thanks guys, ill take the time to explore the options

SPV wallets are the wallet you are looking for. Hive wallets, multibit, electrum are a few open-sourced wallets. I would recommend you to review the source code before you use the wallet. Reviewing the source code for suspicious codes could reduce the chances of you getting bitcoins stolen or wallet infected. Never use online wallets that store your Bitcoins on the central wallet, for example, exchanges, coinbase or casino. For Blockchain.info however, you can have the full control of your private key and the password or unencrypted version of the private key will never be stored on their server. If they get hacked, your wallet most likely would not get compromised since bruteforcing takes a lot of time.

Electrum ftw.

A light wallet is the way to go. Bitcoin qt is a ballache waiting for it to synch. You could also try Paper wallets but I don't trust them myself (or should I say I dont trust myself to create them 100% securely).

Throwing in my vote for Electrum or Armory. Both of them work great.

Electrum or multibit never got into Armory though but it's most secure out there.

can u recommend any good physical wallets ?

I think you've asked already and I have answered!

I prefer two storages, one on a desktop wallet, and the other to my cold wallet for safe keeping eventually to be bigger then my desktop wallet balance.

I agree with you, everyone having an important amount of bitcoins (for some it's 1BTC for others 100) should keep a large portion of it in cold store.

Cold storage can simply be a paper wallet that has been created off-line.

Best physical wallet is to make a paper wallet then lock it in a safe deposit box or home safe:

https://www.bitaddress.org

https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/

If you'd like a hardware wallet, then Trezor is the way to go:

https://www.bitcointrezor.com/

Maybe generate a seed you can use on many devices. This will help you.

i suggest to use Electrum :)

https://electrum.org/

electrum or armory!

My votes for Electrum.  Keep a cold storage with the majority of your BTC in it.  Have whatever you are willing to trade on exchanges, or buy things with in a hot wallet.

Thanks for all the answers guys. On a side note, I found Electrum to be a sweet service so I went with that

Then you should avoid BitcoinQT (core wallet) and try MultiBit (multibit.org). It takes only a few seconds to sync and use.

Why ? Does BitcoinQT require to DL the blockchain ?

yeah, but you can download it one time , and you are good to go

The QT is decentralized, a wallet like Electrum communicates with centralized servers.

Yes, BitcoinQT downloads the whole blockchain data, which is usually several GB.

MultiBit is a 'lite' client which downloads most recent block info, but is equally good & secure for most users.

Incorrect, Multibit is a SPV client which downloads the header of every block. SPV clients trust miners to enforce the network rules, full-chain client does not trust miner this way. Bitcoin Core is currently near 27 GB, headers-first synchronization should cut down the initial sync time in the next stable release (v0.10).

Thanks for correcting, I didn't know that.

And nice to know the next release of core wallet will cut down on initial sync time.

The bitcoin core developers are also working hard to make an "autoprune" feature in it to allow you to run it with a small space usage, though it can't be made in version 0.10.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/4701