Bitcoin Forum

K so we are all aware that everyone is out to get our bitcoins, just as in any aspect of life it seems, there is always someone trying to take advantage of other people. Unfortunately this is a harsh reality, which leaves us with the frequent question of how do we protect our bitcoins? My personal idea for my own use is exceptional due to the fact that I have an extra laptop laying around I dont often use. I am contemplating dedicating my laptop as my primary bitcoin banking account. Hence the reason for this post is to get the oppinion of others if this would be a safe and acceptable way to store and protect my bitcoins.

I have at this point in time 1 mining rig.

I am pool mining at mining.bitcoin.cz (api2.bitcoin.cz)

I have my bitcoins deposit my bitcoins after each 1.0 BTC is generated to my MTGOX account.

After each bitcoin is generated and deposited to my MTGOX acct I then power on my laptop (wifi can be enabled and disabled by a switch on the front of the laptop) transfer my bitcoins to my laptop and then power it off.

This would be the safest way to transfer and store my bitcoins correct? Using the same if not similar method as a removable USB device, leaving me with the only variable that MTGOX could be hacked and I would lose 1-2 BTC or that for some reason mining.bitcoin.cz was compromised leaving me with >1BTC lost. Correct?

Please advise. thx :)

An easier solution would be to make a note of a bitcoin addresses held on your laptop and then instruct slush to send all of your mining payouts to that address. The coins will be waiting for you at that address and they'll be yours when you turn on your laptop and update the blockchain. Because there is no time limit for claiming your coins the only time you would have to turn on the laptop and update the blockchain would be when you want to spend some coins.

Also if you're the kind of person who enjoys watching his BTC balance grow ( I am ;) ) you can keep track of how many coins your address has at blockexplorer.com

 

I'd use a two-wallet approach: A spare change one and one whose .dat is on a USB drive somewhere.

nice both posts very useful i think i will make a combination of them all. :)

This chap is on the money

That's a good plan.

I will use both and I might add using a moblie wallet  :)

I'm not trying to hijack this thread but thought this is an interesting subject, at least to me.
Like the OP, my bitcoin client is on my laptop that's not mining. I turned on my client to get the latest block (and my earnings) 2-3 times / week. Then I turn off the client,  back up my wallet.dat file to a couple of USB drive.
Unlike the OP, I don't have the $$ to have a dedicated pc / laptop just to run the client. So I do use the laptop on a daily basis.

I have read one of the comments and the term "mobile wallet". How does that work? Is that where one installs the client in that USB? Was that the idea and is that possible?

I do this.  Just make sure your offline wallet is encrypted.

The mobile wallet is basically a bundle of the application (bitcoin.exe) and the application directory (c:/users/currentuser/appdata/roaming/bitcoin) in one place, typically a USB stick or separate partition. You can than run the application with the appdir= flag to point to the mobile directory.
I personal do this on an encrypted USB stick. I have the app and app directory in a bitcoin folder and run the exe from a bat file with the arg.
Run bitcoin.exe datadir="%cd%\bitcoin
Which has the bitcoin.conf file in it as well as the other goodness.

There's a good post on this in the forums. My syntax maybe wrong. I'm on my phone away from PC =\

I keep all my bitcoins on paper wallets, other than maybe about 5 BTC which I keep in MtGox just in case I want to spend a trivial amount without having to cash in one of my paper addresses.