I need security help. Still. (I'm sorry)

[cmbconcretefire]

Here's my current formula > Regular paycheck in bank > Circle Pay or Coin Base to buy BTC > then to Mycelium.

I consider Mycelium to be my "Safe." That's where I'm keeping my hoard of btc. But I'm quickly learning that isn't really an option because I'm also sending small transactions from that wallet to my brother, my two sons, etc. So now I'm viewing Mycelium as like my carrying around small change bitcoin. $100 or so.

I REALLY REALLY like the idea of a paper wallet that's completely offline. Where I can sent many transactions TO that public address.....but never remove from it. That would be my ultimate vault.

But I don't understand HOW I could actually check the "balance" of the paper wallet from time to time. Just to be sure, without compromising it? And my plan seems so simple but it's driving me nuts that I can't figure this out.

I want an air tight system where I can send BTC, repeatedly, never having scanned the private key, but yet, I want the ability to be able to see what amount of money is actually in there. UGgggggg.......please help.

[shorena]

Here's my current formula > Regular paycheck in bank > Circle Pay or Coin Base to buy BTC > then to Mycelium.

I consider Mycelium to be my "Safe." That's where I'm keeping my hoard of btc. But I'm quickly learning that isn't really an option because I'm also sending small transactions from that wallet to my brother, my two sons, etc. So now I'm viewing Mycelium as like my carrying around small change bitcoin. $100 or so.

I REALLY REALLY like the idea of a paper wallet that's completely offline. Where I can sent many transactions TO that public address.....but never remove from it. That would be my ultimate vault.

But I don't understand HOW I could actually check the "balance" of the paper wallet from time to time. Just to be sure, without compromising it? And my plan seems so simple but it's driving me nuts that I can't figure this out.

I want an air tight system where I can send BTC, repeatedly, never having scanned the private key, but yet, I want the ability to be able to see what amount of money is actually in there. UGgggggg.......please help.

You can just use the address from your paper wallet to look up the balance on any blockchain explorer, like e.g. blocktrail.com[1] or blockchain.info[2]. It is important to keep the private key offline. The address however is publicly known anyway after the first transaction, so you do not compromise any information.

[1] https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC
[2] https://blockchain.info/

[achow101]

As Shorena said, you can do address lookups on block explorers.

You can also import the public key into a wallet and thus have a watching-only address (or wallet with one address). This means that you can have all the benefits of a wallet software (i.e. notifications, tracking of balance, unsigned transaction creation) without exposing the private key.