Wallets with providers

[ranochigo]

I think the best way will be to store your coins offline. Only get them out when needed, otherwise keep it safe in a cold-storage. Why to risk your coins by keeping all of them at one online platform.

It is a huge hassle to spend any of the coins if you are looking to store everything offline. If you want, you can store a majority of them offline. You can still store them on your mobile phone or desktop computer. Sure they may not be as safe as cold storage but if you do take security precautions, you can easily make it as secure as any offline cold storage.

[pooya87]

I think the best way will be to store your coins offline. Only get them out when needed, otherwise keep it safe in a cold-storage. Why to risk your coins by keeping all of them at one online platform.

It is a huge hassle to spend any of the coins if you are looking to store everything offline. If you want, you can store a majority of them offline. You can still store them on your mobile phone or desktop computer. Sure they may not be as safe as cold storage but if you do take security precautions, you can easily make it as secure as any offline cold storage.

the important thing is to keep whichever wallet you choose, safe. you have to keep your bitcoins that are not going to use in short term in cold storage to keep it safe for the future, lets say a couple of years later.
the rest you can keep in an online wallet or a lightweight wallet that lets you spend then with ease.

[Lorenzo]

No mention of Blockchain.info?

They are one of the few online wallet providers that give users access to their own private keys. This means that even if they were to shut down, you would still be able to recover your bitcoins.

Someone posted another thread a few weeks ago asking if there were any other online wallet providers which offered a similar type of service and so far, Blockchain.info seems to be unique in this regard. It also explains why they are so popular:

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1076837

 -snip-

Then you have Blockchain.info and multi-sig online wallets where you actually have some actual control over your coins on a technical level since you own the private key to your addresses. This is safer than the above and are probably suitable for storing medium amounts of BTC.

 -snip-

Blockchain.info is not at all a secure wallet. Stop recommending it to users. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1085983.0

Ouch, didn't realize that. Fortunately, it seems that only a minority of those using their mobile app were affected and those who lost funds were compensated for their losses. Still, it's a pretty stupid programming mistake to make and it definitely doesn't give me a lot of confidence about their other services.

That being said, I still stand by my opinion that they're better compared to other online wallets where you don't have any degree of control over your funds. Historically, many more online wallet services have failed due to the operator running off with their customers' funds versus incidents where programming bugs were to blame. Online wallets as a whole are never meant to be secure anyway.

[ranochigo]

No mention of Blockchain.info?

They are one of the few online wallet providers that give users access to their own private keys. This means that even if they were to shut down, you would still be able to recover your bitcoins.

Someone posted another thread a few weeks ago asking if there were any other online wallet providers which offered a similar type of service and so far, Blockchain.info seems to be unique in this regard. It also explains why they are so popular:

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1076837

 -snip-

Then you have Blockchain.info and multi-sig online wallets where you actually have some actual control over your coins on a technical level since you own the private key to your addresses. This is safer than the above and are probably suitable for storing medium amounts of BTC.

 -snip-

Blockchain.info is not at all a secure wallet. Stop recommending it to users. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1085983.0

Ouch, didn't realize that. Fortunately, it seems that only a minority of those using their mobile app were affected and those who lost funds were compensated for their losses. Still, it's a pretty stupid programming mistake to make and it definitely doesn't give me a lot of confidence about their other services.

That being said, I still stand by my opinion that they're better compared to other online wallets where you don't have any degree of control over your funds. Historically, many more online wallet services have failed due to the operator running off with their customers' funds versus incidents where programming bugs were to blame. Online wallets as a whole are never meant to be secure anyway.

In the first incident, they updated the code and it turned out to be flawed. The least they could have done is to test it but they didn't. For the second incident, they could have regularly audit the code. No excuses since it occurred more than a month ago and people has beeen talking about it for sometime already. If you are going to choose a wallet, choose greenaddress.it. They are opensourced and have much more features with low risk of the loss of your Bitcoin. More importantly, it doesn't have a bad track record.

[makcik]

It's already known that bitcoins don't have any official community to look after. So the bitcoin wallets which we use aren't governed by any one too. They are working independent on their own without anyone to point finger at them for any reason.
So, if you are using any bitcoin wallet from any provider and it gets shut down , then unfortunately you do lost your bitcoins. You can't do anything about it. Just make sure that you use a reliable and trusted wallet provider as they won't get shut down soon. Even if they will.. They will issue a notice before some time so you can transfer your bitcoins to some other address.

[notlist3d]

It's already known that bitcoins don't have any official community to look after. So the bitcoin wallets which we use aren't governed by any one too. They are working independent on their own without anyone to point finger at them for any reason.
So, if you are using any bitcoin wallet from any provider and it gets shut down , then unfortunately you do lost your bitcoins. You can't do anything about it. Just make sure that you use a reliable and trusted wallet provider as they won't get shut down soon. Even if they will.. They will issue a notice before some time so you can transfer your bitcoins to some other address.

This is the reason you would want a private key in safety deposit box or such.  With a cold storage like paper you actually can use that private with many different wallets once you need it.  But it can be kept offline until you need it.

The private key is important though, as it keeps it were you retain ownership of  the BTC address and can use it in multiple wallets if need was there.  Also security of this private key is truly essential.  As with it your BTC can be taken so you really need secure storage of it.