Bitcoin Forum

Hey there guys,
I recently decided to make a new wallet to secure my funds which are growing.
The wallet is for Bitcoins.
I will not be using them to buy or sell, but just store them and keep it as an investment.
Please suggest something, other than hardware wallets, because I dont want to shell out money on them

core and electrum are both pretty safe, the latter let you do offline transaction

The safest wallet is Armory. There is no debate on that.

Using a non-networked PC (a small netbook will work) and a webcam it can give you 100% security.

Agreed. Armory is the one I use for my primary wallet; it's got so many security features that may seem tedious but are worth it. It's called "Armory" for a reason!

I have been using the offline version sometime now.


If it takes photos if a person tries to login would give you better security but don't make logging-in option using your face because it can be faked with your photo unless you set some additional options such as blinking the eyes x times etc...

   ~~MZ~~

You can use electrum if you won't to download the data from block chain, armory is good wallet too, bit coin core and green address too ;)

Bitcoin core and Electrum are good way to keep safe your account. But I prefer blockchain.info, it is very good and it is online (but you can set every safe parameter that you want).

I like multibit and electrum, it depends on your needs

I want ultimate safety of funds.

"Safe" is a very interesting word.  It really depends on what you are trying to protect yourself from.

In many cases it might be "safest" to trust someone else to secure your bitcoins for you if you aren't capable of taking the proper steps to securing your own bitcoins.  In that case, the "safest" might be something like Coinbase.  They will handle the process of storing multiple backups in secure locations and insuring their assets.  Unfortunately, since they have full control of the bitcoins, there is always the possibility that they run off with them or are hacked.

If you are going to store your own bitcoins, then there are a few risks you need to be aware of and to protect yourself from:

• Risk that your wallet will be lost or destroyed (fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, lightning, volcano, tsunami, hurricane, mudslide, vehicle crash, hard drive head crash, etc).
• Risk that a hacker will access your wallet through the internet
• Risk that a stranger will physically access your wallet (breaking&entering, physical theft, etc)
• Risk that a friend or family member will access your wallet
• Risk that the a government agency will seize your wallet
• Risk that a criminal will resort to extortion, kidnapping, or physical threat to get you to send them your bitcoins

Some of these can be protected against with any wallet simply by making sure that you maintain multiple recent backups in secure locations.
Some of these can be protected against with any wallet simply by making sure that you use a very strong password.
Some of these can only be protected against with BOTH a very strong password AND maintaining multiple recent backups in secure locations no matter what wallet you use.
Some of these can only be protected against by making sure that nobody knows that you own the bitcoins, no matter what wallet you use.

The only thing you are protecting against by choosing a "safest wallet" is the ability for a hacker to access your wallet through the internet.  In this case, any wallet that is not connected to the internet is equally secure.  Therefore, if that is what you are trying to protect yourself from, you can choose any of the following:

• Properly created paper wallet
• Armory offline (requires a computer that is never connected to the internet)
• Electrum offline (requires a computer that is never connected to the internet)

+1111. Wow! This is the best post I have found in this year about "storing BTC safely". You absolutely changed my mind. :)


Sorry! Deleted!

   ~~MZ~~

Just download a liteweight client and keep your wallet.dat backed up offline until you need it.


I think most wallets are only as safe as the person that is using them is.

Ledger Wallet, TREZOR, Armory...never trust a service like Blockchain or Coinbase.

???

I also use the offline Armory as a cold wallet.

Paper wallets are also advised to be more secure.

Wouldn't backing up something like Bitcoin QT on a flash drive work effectively ?

Also, how does one go about making a paper wallet ?

are these:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=899253.0


but for small amounts an online or desktop wallet is okay.

That would be okay if you use a internet-not-connected computer. There is an OS for doing this, BitKey but I haven't tested it, so I can't vouch for it. Better stick with paper wallet.


You can create an address and dump the private key and print it. Armory wallet gives good support for doing this. :)

   ~~MZ~~

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the safest wallet imo is multibit

I was saying use the webcam to sign transaction. That way the wallet never has to touch any networked computer and is totally secure, there is no way to compromise it.

The best way secure your BTC is to buy a vps and install wallet on it!

And why? What is if the VPS get hacked?

Exactly.
Why host your wallet on a VPS when you can put it completely offline and away from hackers?

This sounds like one of the worst wallet securing ideas I've heard in a long time.

The safest one to keep as an investment? DEF paper wallet, otherwise this looks good also 3CC4x1h8vde9YqyDmys3s6CaXcxsZwkYbQ

Haha so true Danny! Maybe his idea was to install Owncloud on a VPS and encrypt the wallet file and store it there. I hope it :D

I don't think that someone suggesting to install plain wallet on vps has any idea about security/encryption.

armoury. built to be the most secure and still is.

The safest wallet is the one in your head.

What if the person gets mad or lose his memory mostly due head-crash/hit? ::)

   ~~MZ~~

i wanted to respond but DannyHamilton did it way better than i could
i can only add this
choose whichever you like and suits your needs. you can visit their official websites and read some reviews on each of them by searching.
for example i chose Electrum because it didn't need to download the whole blockchain so it didn't need that much hard drive space.
also, always keep backups from your wallets, private keys, secret phrase pasword or whatever

lol its mean if lose memory, lose money too :D

1) Use bitcoin-core as a wallet and have anti-virus on the computer (I only trust bitcoin core wallet).
2) Offline wallet.
3) Dont keep it in online wallet.

And

4) Use Linux!

My suggestion :)

I know a lot of people don't trust online services but I've been using Coinbase for a while now and so far I'm very happy, especially now that they have the Vault which allows you to store your BTC offline. The reason that I prefer online storage is that way I always have access to my Bitcoin whatever country I'm in. With a regular wallet it would a hassle having to carry it around with you along with your laptop, not to mention that it's a possible security risk too. Coinbase is also insured against hacks/thefts. It just depends on what your priorities are, if you don't really use your BTC very often and just have them as a long term investment then the Bitcoin core would make more sense but if you actually use your BTC to shop online or trade then I think it's worth considering online storage simply because they are a lot more practical.

For small amounts, online wallets are PERFECT! The problem are large amounts in combination with bad security. Always use 2FA, strong password etc.

Safest is armory. Lots of secure features on it.

But you will need to have bitcoin core installed, and the whole blockchain downloaded

You can prepare a paper walltet, and then encrypt it.

As a hot wallet, then yes you need to have the full blockchain data to use armory.
But as a cold wallet, then no you don't need it.

As a hot wallet used to spend Bitcoin I'd stick to Electrum or Multibit. They are light wallets (they don't have to download and validate the whole blockchain, which takes quite some time), and are considered safe by most people. Using online services defies the core purpose of Bitcoin - you don't control your own money. If you (and only you!!!) aren't in possession of the private key, you don't own the Bitcoin.

Buy a trezor, set it up correctly and instal electrum to go with it, on a brand new never used again laptop. Safe!

Trezor is the best BTC wallet, if you concern safety, otherwise Blockchain is also good  ;D

Safest wallet is definitely a hardware wallet which is opensourced and secure from virus attacks, for example, trezor. The disadvantage is that it is very expensive, $100 per. For normal uses, a paper wallet/offline raspberry pi would be secure enough if you sign transactions offline.

Brainwallet.  Armory offline works too.  Just don't forget your passphrase or lose file etc.

Make sure you have 2 PC's.

Install offline armory on an offline PC, never connect it to the internet, in fact take out the network adapter form it, to not even make it available to connect to it from wireless.

Then install offline armory on the offline PC, and use it as cold storage, and use a formatted USB stick to sign the transactions on the offline PC.

The safest method I know, nobody can steal your coins.

Boeing quite new to bitcoin world I was lurking around on here when found this great post. Found it really helpful, It really opened my mind and decide to bump it hoping it may help other people in my same situation

While that is true that nobody will steal your coins from the outside. But there is always a possibility of your hardware failure. After all it can happen sometime. I guess your method is good and if you want maximum security you should add paper copy wallet to it.

Yes, thats a valuable suggestion.

There are some cheaper hardware wallets now to compete with Trezor. For example, the ledger wallet is selling at a price of 29 Euros. Hopefully the price of hardware wallets could come further down when more and more competitors appear.

The way they are made is different. Trezor gives more hardware security than Ledger though Ledger is enough for simple purposes, just take a good care of it.

   ~~MZ~~

When you are looking to keep your Bitcoins just create Paper wallet - find a exactly process how to do it with offline comp and printer. Use good paper, make some copies and put them on different places, but secured to you. Then you are on safe side.

If you want to be really safe, then get a cheap laptop and use it as your dedicated wallet hardware. No internet connection unless needed, No porn surfing on it either. A dedicated laptop is better for staving off keyloggers especially if you're the only one who use it

Hi

Let me tell you one thing don't put your whole btc money in a single wallet. I recommend you to use coinbase, btc-e to store your money in these two different wallets.

Thanks

Regards
Online recharge service

You could also buy a raspberry pi and make a offline wallet from it. You could still create transactions by signing transactions on it then broadcasting it using another online computer.  Raspberry pi is the cheapest.

yeah agree hardware wallet is the safest wallet ever :)

Can I tell you if you don't mind? Don't put your money in an address where you don't have access to the private key.

   ~~MZ~~

It's more complicated than that, you should definitely not put more than 1 BTC in online wallets, for example if you got 50 BTC then you should have 49 in offline cold storage.

But I think the other 1 BTC can be in 1 wallet online, because it will be much easier to spend it, than if it were in an offline wallet.

If i have to buy something online with bitcoin then i can quickly send any amount under 1 BTC under 10 min, whereas if I were to use my offline PC, i have to boot it up, enter all passwords, create unsigned transaction, send it , bla bla.

It would take atleast 20 minutes to just send the trransaction then another 10 minute to broadcast it. So this will take 30 minutes, but if I use online wallet then it can be done @ 10 minutes, for small sums.

Of course if you invest 10 BTC, then its better to do the longer offline transaction, because its safer and 10 BTC is a lot of money.