Which is the safest wallet to use for long term offline storage?

[Pattart]

Which is the safest wallet to use?

 I'm buying a laptop that will always be offline and used just to store my bitcoins. I'm wondering which would be the safest wallet to use to store the coins.

This is a good idea and I'm also planning this to do so. No other transactions, applications/sofware should be installed for that laptop. It will be your very own storage. Just make sure you hav safe vault for the laptop for safekeeping. And I have my choice which is bitcoin core for the wallet. I guess all of them are safe so its base on my own comfort.

I think all desktop wallets are safe enough, you just need to install anti-virus or anti-malware on your laptop so no one will hack in your wallet. I've been using desktop wallets from 2013 and to date there's no problem whatsoever when I'm using desktop wallet (bitcoin core)

[alexis3]

The safest wallet to use IMO is Armory, using it to generate addresses offline in a computer not accessible to the internet or by anyone other than you is one of the most secure methods in my opinion, specially with a password to encrypt them. That is one of the most secure long term wallets, the difficulty lies in Armory being a little hard to use for a complete newbie.

[ornabldo]

an offline wallet using either bitaddress.org offline or armory based bit address generating ability, there are other options like blockchain.info which are working for years and is very secure and can enable you to save the coins for long-term storage.

[jtipt]

Which is the safest wallet to use?
I'm buying a laptop that will always be offline and used just to store my bitcoins. I'm wondering which would be the safest wallet to use to store the coins.

There is no need to buy a whole laptop for the just purpose of storing bitcoin. I prefer a paper wallet is the best method for cold storage for a long time, as long as you keep the paper safe its the best method. If you don't want paper wallet then you can just buy any hardware wallet and store BTC in it, a good hardware wallet is Trezor. But if stull you want to cold store BTC on lapton then any decent desktop wallet show be fine, electrum, MultibitHD, bitcoin core/qt or armory are good choices.

[fan_of_things_and_stuff]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but what is the advantage of taking it out of an online wallet like Coinbase? Is it just that you are afraid that the provider might get owned and lose your $$?

Yes, that's exactly what the reason is.
Storing your Bitcoins on an online wallet is not safe as all as they might get hacked. (Has already happened a lot times.)

Also, Coinbase is known for freezing customer accounts without giving any reason. (Which sucks)

Storing Bitcoins in an HD wallet is safer, because you control your own Bitcoins.

Thanks 
I guess its a tradeoff though because you could use that argument to stop trusting anything on the internet, at which point the best solution is to not have a computer lol. But yea I guess if the wallet isn't very trustworthy you can at least trust yourself

[mastadonballs]

You don't need to use a laptop to store your Bitcoin, all you need is a hardware, plug in your hardware, send Bitcoin to that (use  ledger nano or trezor) and do not let that hardware connect to the Internet anymore

[btcdevil]

The more secure and easiest way of storing bitcoins is download electrum and install it, you will get your passphrase which is the main key to open your wallet any where , you can even delete you whole wallet but just remember your passphrase. because with this passphrase you can rebuild your wallet anywhere any time for this you also dont need to sync as it is easy to use.

[choppork]

Which is the safest wallet to use?

 I'm buying a laptop that will always be offline and used just to store my bitcoins. I'm wondering which would be the safest wallet to use to store the coins.

Why even use a laptop to secure just a little wallet file. It's cute that you had this idea because I had this idea before too. But then I realized is it worth buying a new laptop just to store one wallet? A laptop is a device. It can get soaked, thus, destroyed. It can be dropped. All of things can happen and so I thought a flash drive is even better. It can be dropped but it's not going to destroy itself since it's basically weightless.

I'm using electrum offline wallet that's saved on a USB flash drive. Trezor and all those hardware wallets use the same hardware with USB and so they have the same lifespan. I think people are just trying to be fancy whenever they use Trezor. You don't need to spend $100 just for an offline wallet.

Funds of any wallet can be stolen if someone finds out about your password or found your seed. It doesn't matter which device did you use.

[Prodigan786]

I think paper wallet is safe if your having very less bitcoin like less than 2 bitcoin. But i would recommend hardware wallet if your having good ammount of bitcoin

[richardsNY]

I think paper wallet is safe if your having very less bitcoin like less than 2 bitcoin. But i would recommend hardware wallet if your having good ammount of bitcoin

In both cases the actual amount doesn't really matter. Paper wallets largely are meant for people that aren't planning to make use of their coins any time soon. Hardware wallets give people more flexibility as they don't only allow you to securely store your coins, but it also allows you to securely transact with the outside world -- that's the added benefit that hardware wallets offer over paper wallets.

[espante]

I think paper wallet is safe if your having very less bitcoin like less than 2 bitcoin. But i would recommend hardware wallet if your having good ammount of bitcoin

In both cases the actual amount doesn't really matter. Paper wallets largely are meant for people that aren't planning to make use of their coins any time soon. Hardware wallets give people more flexibility as they don't only allow you to securely store your coins, but it also allows you to securely transact with the outside world -- that's the added benefit that hardware wallets offer over paper wallets.

There will always be paranoia though of the possibility of a backdoor somewhere in a hardware wallet.

When you are talking about offline storage though I assume its not meant to be transacted anytime in the near future in which case a paper wallet is the best. Store it in a safe or a bank safety deposit box for the long term.

[richardsNY]

There will always be paranoia though of the possibility of a backdoor somewhere in a hardware wallet.

It's not entirely impossible, but the point is that you at some point will import your private keys into whatever client. In this case the chances that your private keys may get compromised are quite on the same level, maybe even higher -- paranoia always exists.

When you are talking about offline storage though I assume its not meant to be transacted anytime in the near future in which case a paper wallet is the best. Store it in a safe or a bank safety deposit box for the long term.

Paper wallets are the cheapest form of storage, but it was just to point out that there is an extra form of usability when it comes to hardware wallets. That these hardware wallets support secure transactions, doesn't mean you have to use it to transact frequently. It serves very well as long term offline storage too.

[joromz1226]

Which is the safest wallet to use?

 I'm buying a laptop that will always be offline and used just to store my bitcoins. I'm wondering which would be the safest wallet to use to store the coins.

The wallet I could suggest to you was Multibi hd, bitcoin core and electrum they are good to store our bitcoin.
even offline, it is very safe and secured.

[ViceOfBTC21]

Paper wallets are definitely safest way to go. You placed a good bet. Remove hard disk. Set up Tails OS on USB disk. Don't use persistence, unless system don't detect your printer. Don't connect computer to networks and secure system blocking network traffic in More options during booting Tails OS. Then connect bitaddress.org USB disk that you got from online computer. Generate paper wallets and print them without exposing it online.

[krogothmanhattan]

I was relatively new to the paper wallets too. So I started this post that might be helpful

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1965815.msg19583573#msg19583573

  I wanted to make sure the paper wallet was valid and that my coins would not be sent into oblivion or worse the private and public key were not a match.

  I tested one wallet with $10 and swept it to make sure I would be able to retrieve,. it worked..but as You can see once swept you should never use again.

  I also have a Trezor. So I split between the paper and Trezor. Also my laptop acts as a cold storage since it will never connect to the internet.

  Goodluck
   

[iqlimasyadiqa]

Computer and Laptop is not the right choice to store bitcoin safely for a long time. You better buy bitcoin wallet hardware, it will be much better. You do not have to worry when your computer is exposed to a virus and you can lose all the data you have. Imagine how much money can be lost, it is not worth the price of existing bitcoin wallet hardware.

[papajamba]

paper wallet for me. 3 copies. its free =)

[DoublerHunter]

I only believe in paper wallet because they are easy to make and you only need a good printer and also a durable paper so you can have the safest and cheapest cold storage of all time. You can also add some assurance for your paper wallet to last for long by just laminating it so you can add more years or life to your paper wallet and you don't need to worry about the security of your bitcoins or any cryptocurrencies anymore.

[Aztek]

Which is the safest wallet to use?

 I'm buying a laptop that will always be offline and used just to store my bitcoins. I'm wondering which would be the safest wallet to use to store the coins.

There is no best wallet for comparison between wallets offline, because they are all safe, and they have similar features. For offline wallets (hardware wallet), you are the only person who can secure your money, as long as you do not let anyone know your private key, they can not steal your money.

The point is all wallet is quite the same on features and usage. The thing is we need a suitable wallet in depends on our transaction. Some wallets is intend for transaction. But if you are looking a wallet for holding or a long term hold i suggest to find a high security bitcoin wallet where you can hold your bitcoin for a long time. And i also suggest to choose or to use one or more wallet for you to lessen the risk in losing bitcoin. But if you are good on choosing one it is also okay as long as you will manage it well.

[Xenophoto]

It doesn't matter which wallet you use. It can be a desktop wallet, paper wallet, or hardware wallet. Web wallets are the least secure one since the website might run away, and the website and yourself can get hacked. Web wallets that have private keys even exposes you to another attack which is finding the private key somewhere.

Regardless of which wallet you use, the seed/private keys will always be the most important thing to put in the safest place. You can spend a hundred dollars on trezor and still get hacked when someone found the paper that has your seed. In conclusion, your wallet is just as secure as you make it. You can put the paper with the seed in the vault and delete the wallet file generated. This way, the only way for your bitcoins to get stolen is by getting that paper from the vault. You can also place the paper somewhere else if you feel that vaults aren't secure enough for your precious bitcoins.