Be careful, from my experience Macs don't like it when you get under 10GB of free space...if your system begins slowing to a crawl you may need to delete something.

XMR.to was tailored for Monero use from the ground up. UX wise, i think it's perfect. Copy paste the transaction in simplewallet, spend. Tx recognzed instantly. Takes just a few seconds. I use it several times a week.

Shapeshift has to support many coins, and Monero is still very different so they cannot be as good unless they devote more time/money to it. Which, to their credit they have done in order to recognize transactions in the mempool, etc.

Nothing wrong with Shapeshift, it's great that they support Monero. XMR.to also came before Shapeshift even existed, so very likely these plans have been in the works since that time. The GUI wireframes are at least that old 

Like others have said, being an open source project I'm sure someone will make a shapeshift plugin if there is demand for it.

Recovering the paper wallet can be done without simplewallet - you can take the 25 word seed directly to mymonero.com BUT you have to pay a one time import fee of 10 xmr. This fee is due to having to rescan the entire blockchain from 0, takes some resources to do so. (Maybe the fee will be reduced if the price continues to stay this high, I don't know.)

If it is a large enough amount I'd certainly sleep better at night having it in cold storage.

Glad to hear it is going well. No, that's not an error. The 0.07 is some of the change that went back to the wallet you spent from. If you were to replace #2 and # 3 with the address and viewkey of the wallet you sent from and it should show that the address owns that output.

For example just like in Bitcoin, if you send 1 BTC from an address containing 2 BTC, the entire output of 2 BTC is spent in the transaction, with the change of 1 BTC going to a new address in your wallet. The same applies here.

You are right that the keys file is what you need. The .keys file is encrypted by your password, this happens at the time of wallet generation, it's not possible to make a wallet without a password in simplewallet. Maybe you put a really basic password "password" on the wallet? Unfortunately passwords like that are the ones easily forgotten.

If it does become worth it there is the wallet recovery services guy, I don't know that he supports Monero right now but I imagine with the recent sea change that there will be a demand for him to brute force a monero wallet. He asks for 20% of the wallet if it is recovered.

https://walletrecoveryservices.com/

Can't remember who ran that service but it is probably better to set up your own open alias on your own domain if you wish to use it. Imagine if a lot of people started using a service like that, all it takes is a successful hack to switch all the addresses and maybe they steal some XMR before it gets noticed.

Ok, well if you want to move funds to cold storage without using simplewallet, you can use moneroaddress.org (or this: https://github.com/moneromooo-monero/monero-wallet-generator)

Generate the address on an offline computer and save the seed and private keys (the seed is all you need to restore the wallet, but might as well save it all).

Use the viewkey to check that your funds have arrived at cold storage address using this:
http://xmr.llcoins.net/checktx.html

That's a 2 year old post you're referencing, kurious.

Monero Core (0.9.4) has come a long way since then and I find the CLI very stable on OSX to be honest. I'm running it on El Capitan. No bugs. The only time I have problems is when I upgrade boost and need to resync my wallet cache but the average person isn't doing that. You should be able to download the binaries and get started right away.

If you're up to trying it again I'd be happy to answer any questions

https://getmonero.org/downloads/

Sorry, replied to the previous question before seeing this. Has the daemon synced with the blockchain fully? Are you trying to restore a wallet from the mnemonic seed or you just want to create a new wallet?

It sounds like you are trying to import a wallet created in simplewallet to use in MyMonero, is that correct? That is why Mymonero is asking for the import fee.

I've never done it myself but I don't think you send funds anywhere, it just will deduct 10 XMR from the balance of the wallet you are trying to import.

You can check that the balance was received by entering the tx id, view key, and the public address of your cold wallet here:

http://xmr.llcoins.net/checktx.html

Test it with a small amount and then verify it was received before you send the full amount.

I would probably be ok with printing on an older printer if it does not have wifi. Depends on your level of paranoia. When the day comes that you dispose of the printer take it apart and see if it has a HD in it, if so destroy it.

I like this strategy. Lot of people might say "SELL NOW", price may go down, which is certainly a probable outcome. As for me, I decided I want to have X amount of Monero and I try to adhere around that number. There was a brief time I played the sell because I thought it would go lower, then ended up buying back higher, then the price went lower...personally I don't want that stress and it causes me to make bad decisions. This is the opposite advice some people would give you (don't get attached to any asset, etc). I think you can get attached as long as you ensure the decision is right for you.

Write the mnemonic seed on paper (or get fancy with a cryptosteel, or whatever you want) and store it in the safe, and save the .keys file that simplewallet generates on your USB.

Disadvantages to storing on a USB only:
- the drive could fail somehow
- you could forget your password to the wallet

By keeping the mnemonic seed written down somewhere safe, you can mitigate those unfortunate outcomes. When it comes to storing your money, I recommend using all precautions available to you.

Only need to specify the address and payment id.

Example:
transfer <address> <amount> <payment_id>

The default mixin count of 4 will be used if you do not specify mixin.

I will play of course, contribute as I can and continue to fulfill my duties in CK.

I started playing CK because I was so excited about Monero's potential but there was nothing to use it on at the time. No XMR.to, no Shapeshift, no MyMonero. Not to mention some very depressing periods of time involving the price, so playing a game at least brought some enjoyment to everyone.

Along the way the game has had many ups and downs in interest, lots of features added and realized, and it has been a great accomplishment. Maybe it even saved Monero from doom in its darkest times.

I am surprised all the CON holders have not chimed in yet but maybe they are too busy basking in the XMR glow, enjoying their summer breaks. 

That sounds like the address is malformed somehow, did you copy it directly from Poloniex? Don't forget to include your payment id.

address looks like this:

Hello, I host and maintain moneroaddress.org, and the code is from Monero dev moneromooo here: https://github.com/moneromooo-monero/monero-wallet-generator. Core dev Luigi1111 also contributed. I do not know of any hacks, presumably you mean hacks due to some sort of RNG flaw. There is the option to provide your own entropy if you don't want to trust the browser crypto for your random seed.

Beyond that, the code is based off of what MyMonero uses to generate their seeds, and the only hacks I have heard involving MyMonero people who had malware on their computer, stored the seed on their computer, etc. If you aren't certain that your computer is secure, use Tails or a live CD of Ubuntu at least.

If you are careful to use the site offline and verify the GPG signature, yes I would be comfortable storing large amounts on a paper wallet. But don't trust me, best to try it out yourself and make your own educated decision.

Personally I like to generate my cold wallets using simplewallet on an offline computer, then I can write down the seed and store it safely and also keep a few digital copies of the .keys file just in case.

I would probably break up a large amount into multiple wallets as well, that way you don't have to revive your entire balance if you just need to spend a small portion in the future.

Here is a very detailed how-to if you are interested:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/48cgmd/an_extensive_guide_for_securely_generating_an/

I'm sure it is possible but the counterparty risk would be insane, how much XMR would you trust to an anonymous exchange? Maybe they are legit but get hacked, or say they got hacked and run an exit scam with user deposits. Can't even trace where the stolen funds are going.

I do agree and hope that some more exchanges become seriously interested in Monero now. Poloniex is great but they were down for about 5 minutes yesterday (some sort of outage), it essentially stops the entire XMR ecosystem because everyone (xmr.to, shapeshift) is relying on their api for the exchange rate.

Decentralized exchanges like Bitsquare are a good step.

If Satoshi is still alive I'm sure he or she is aware of Monero. In this post Satoshi mentions "group signatures", which is the foundation for the usage of ring signatures in the Cryptonote protocol.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770.msg9074#msg9074

I don't know firsthand, but I'm pretty sure BTC wasn't added to SR, it was there from the beginning. Tor + Bitcoin = DNMs as we know them. Keep in mind at the time, most people considered bitcoin to be an anonymous (or pseudonymous) way of sending money.

Maybe there were some underground markets predating SR that used other currency (non crypto), but it was the initial media frenzy (slashdot, etc) in early 2011 about Bitcoin and Silk Road that catalyzed the $1->$32 bubble.